{"id":1433,"date":"2021-06-15T08:28:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T12:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1433"},"modified":"2021-06-15T08:28:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T12:28:46","slug":"how-long-lasting-is-immunity-after-infection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1433","title":{"rendered":"How long-lasting is immunity after infection?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0I had coffee the other day with a former colleague.\u00a0 He was telling me that his wife had COVID in February 2020 and that as a result, she doesn’t need to get the vaccine.\u00a0 Is she immune to COVID for life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Duration of immunity is another area that we’re still learning about.\u00a0 I’ve included more details below, but to sum up, immunity post-infection could be long-lived for many, but not all individuals.\u00a0 Immunity will be greatly enhanced through vaccination, which CDC and other\u00a0experts recommend.\u00a0 Read on for more details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to immunity post-infection<\/strong>, we know that:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Infection-derived immunity (aka natural immunity) is more heterogeneous than vaccine-derived immunity, varying especially by age and by severity of infection. (see WHO<\/a>, Q&A of 3\/18\/21<\/a>)<\/li>
  2. In most people, immunity lasts at least 6-8 months (as long as we have solid longitudinal data), and likely much longer. (see WHO<\/a>)  <\/li>
  3. Recent research indicates that long-term immunity to SARS-CoV-2 may persist for years.  For example, a paper published in Nature<\/em><\/a> last month found that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived immune memory residing in bone marrow (home of memory B cells). (for more on this topic, see this commentary published in Nature <\/em>just yesterday<\/a> and for a quick refresh on how the immune system works, see Q&A of 5\/9\/20<\/a>).<\/li>
  4. Even in this study, however, immunity was not consistent across study participants; of those participants who donated bone marrow (n=19), four (4) did not have detectable memory B cells.  As the lead study author, Dr. Ellebedy, told the New York Times<\/em>,<\/a>  \u201cIt tells me that even if you got infected, it doesn\u2019t mean that you have a super immune response. The findings reinforce the idea that people who have recovered from Covid-19 should be vaccinated.” <\/li>
  5. Among individuals who had been previously infected, vaccination with mRNA vaccines has been shown to further boost immune response<\/a>.  <\/li>
  6. CDC recommends<\/a> that individuals should be vaccinated regardless of whether they already had COVID-19.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Question:\u00a0I had coffee the other day with a former colleague.\u00a0 He was telling me that his wife had COVID in February 2020 and that as a result, she doesn’t need to get the vaccine.\u00a0 Is she immune to COVID for life? Answer:\u00a0Duration of immunity is another area that we’re still learning about.\u00a0 I’ve included more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50,38,64],"tags":[210],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guidelines","category-immunity","category-vaccines","tag-natural-immunity","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/pexels-photo-4418992.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1253&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1435,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions\/1435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}