Pair that dip in immune effectivity with the truth that your antibody ranges additionally wane with time post-infection, and it’s straightforward to see how one other hit can rock your physique in a brand new manner. Certainly, the extra time that passes after any given COVID an infection, the much less of a “aggressive benefit” you’ll have in opposition to any future one, Richard Moffitt, PhD, an affiliate professor at Emory College, in Atlanta, tells SELF. His analysis discovered that, whereas individuals who received sick initially through the delta section had been much less more likely to get reinfected through the first omicron wave (as in comparison with people who had been contaminated in a previous interval), that profit leveled off with following omicron variants.
There’s additionally the truth that regardless of how your immune system has responded to a previous pressure (or strains!) of the virus, it may react in a different way to a brand new mutation. “We have a tendency to consider COVID as one homogeneous factor, nevertheless it’s actually not,” Dr. Al-Aly says. So even when your physique efficiently thwarted certainly one of these intruders up to now, there’s no assure it’ll do the identical for an additional, now or sooner or later, he says.
Getting COVID time and again is particularly dangerous if it beforehand made you very sick.
Dr. Moffitt’s examine above additionally discovered that the “severity of your first an infection could be very predictive of the severity of a reinfection,” he says. That means, you’re extra more likely to have a extreme case of COVID—as an example, requiring hospitalization or intensive care, resembling air flow—when reinfected if you happen to had a tough go of it the primary time round.
It’s attainable that some people are extra vulnerable to an off-kilter immune response to the virus, which may then occur persistently with reinfections. The antibodies created in individuals who’ve had extreme instances “could not perform in addition to these in people who’ve had gentle infections or had been in a position to struggle the virus off,” Dr. Melamed says. Although researchers don’t totally perceive why, some individuals’s immune techniques are additionally extra more likely to overreact to COVID (keep in mind the cytokine storm?), which may trigger severe signs—like fluid within the lungs and shortness of breath—every time they’re contaminated.
Being over the age of 65, having a persistent sickness or different medical situation, and missing entry to well being care have all been proven to spike your danger of great outcomes with a COVID an infection, whether or not it’s your first or fifth struggle with the virus.
However you’re not house free if you happen to’ve solely had, say, a short fever or cough with COVID up to now; Dr. Moffitt factors out {that a} small subset of individuals in his analysis who had minor reactions with their preliminary an infection went on to be hospitalized with a repeat hit. The likelihood of that could be decrease, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a risk, he says.
Even if you happen to’ve solely had “gentle” instances, every reinfection strains your physique, upping your probabilities of creating lengthy COVID.
A 2022 examine led by Dr. Al-Aly discovered that COVID reinfections additionally enhance your danger of issues throughout the board, no matter whether or not you recovered simply positive up to now or received vaccinated. Particularly, it confirmed that reinfection raises the probability that you simply’ll want hospitalization; have coronary heart or lung issues; or expertise, amongst different attainable points, GI, neurological, psychological well being, or musculoskeletal signs. “We use the time period ‘cumulative results,’” Dr. Al-Aly says, “so, a number of hits accrue after which go away the physique extra susceptible to all of the potential long-term well being results of COVID.”