A brand new research has discovered that earlier an infection with an Omicron variant of COVID-19 didn’t defend seniors in long-term care and retirement properties from getting reinfected inside a couple of months.
Senior writer and McMaster University immunologist Dawn Bowdish says the research outcomes are stunning as a result of they problem the present fascinated by hybrid immunity.
People are anticipated to achieve hybrid immunity to COVID-19 after they’ve been each vaccinated towards the virus and have additionally been contaminated.
But within the McMaster research, vaccinated seniors who had been contaminated with Omicron variants in early 2022 had been about 20 instances extra prone to be reinfected with one other Omicron variant later that yr.
That’s in comparison with seniors who had been vaccinated however had not been contaminated.
Bowdish says the research suggests folks ought to keep up-to-date with their COVID-19 vaccinations and never assume a earlier an infection is defending them.
But Bowdish additionally says it’s not recognized whether or not or not the research outcomes apply to the final inhabitants or if they’re particular to seniors.
The research adopted 750 vaccinated seniors in long-term care and retirement properties throughout Ontario.
It was revealed Monday in eClinicalMedicine, certainly one of The Lancet’s medical journals.
The research exhibits that loads continues to be unknown about how the virus that causes COVID-19 infects folks, stated Bowdish.
“(Canada’s) vaccination strategy is predicated on this assumption that having had a recent infection will protect you from an infection at least for a short period of time. And our study shows that for some variants that’s just not true in some people,” stated Bowdish, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Aging and Immunity at McMaster University.
