A large, multicenter study has found that people who had COVID-19 have an 84% lower risk of becoming reinfected and a 93% lower risk of symptomatic infection during seven months of follow-up.
Researchers studied 25,661 workers at public hospitals throughout England who were tested for COVID-19 every two to four weeks, and for antibodies at enrollment and every four weeks. Volunteers were also asked to complete questionnaires on symptoms and exposures every two weeks.
"This study shows that previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces effective immunity to future infections in most individuals," study authors wrote. Florian Krammer of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said that although natural infection tends to induce lower and more variable antibody concentrations than COVID-19 vaccines, the findings suggest “that infection and the development of an antibody response provides protection similar to or even better than currently used SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.”
SOURCE: Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy April 12, 2021