The COVID-19 Reinfection Loop and Its Implications for American Health

Many Americans are contracting coronavirus for a second, third, or even fourth time. And every time someone contracts COVID-19, it turns out if they have serious health problems.

It’s a re-infection loop that is taking over the country with no immediate end, and it’s fueled by a coronavirus-variant scene that continues to change rapidly.

The majority of Americans have had COVID-19 at some point estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But with more than 120,000 new infections being reported on average every day – a certain number is significantly low amount because many people rely on home tests – the number of Americans who have not yet been infected with COVID-19 is shrinking while the number of Americans who are being reinfected is increasing.

Of course, reinfection with COVID-19 wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t accompanied by other health risks. But that’s not the case.

Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said he decided to study reinfection after many of his patients began reporting re-infection with COVID-19 and he wondered if reinfection would pose any additional adverse health risks. healthy or not.

“The answer is absolutely, absolutely yes,” said Al-Aly, who is also head of research and development for the St. Louis said. “People need to be really aware that if they’ve been infected before, it’s still worth doing to protect themselves from or reduce the risk of reinfection.”

In a recent researchhas not yet been reviewed, Al-Aly and other researchers found that people who were reinfected had a higher risk of death, hospitalization, lung and heart problems, diabetes, fatigue , digestive and kidney disorders and mental health problems within six months of their last infection compared with those who had been infected once.

“Even if you already have it, having it again is certainly not confusing and completely adds to the risk,” says Al-Aly.

The study, which the authors say is the first to describe the health risks of COVID-19 reinfection to their knowledge, looked at the health records of 250,000 veterans who had been infected once. infected with COVID-19 and nearly 39,000 people have been re-infected one or more times.

Among those who were re-infected, about 36,400 people had two COVID-19 infections, about 2,260 people were infected with COVID-19 three times, and 246 people were infected four or more times.

Al-Aly said that it hopes the findings “will serve as a wake-up call to accelerate the development of new vaccines that actually reduce transmission.”

“I think more needs to be done here to better understand and deepen the situation of reinfection and the health risks associated with this,” he added.

Hope for herd immunity fades

According to leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, two factors are needed for traditional herd immunity. First, the virus doesn’t change much, and second, immunity is long-lasting. Neither of these has been proven true for COVID-19.

Fauci recently told the National Press Foundation: “The big hurdle with COVID is that history has shown us: We’ve got five distinct variants with five spikes, and immunity to the coronavirus is very natural. limited and fleeting,” Fauci recently told the National Press Foundation.

Since the omicron peak in the US in January, three different omicron subvariables have emerged and are rapidly becoming the dominant strains in circulation. The secondary variable most recently came to dominate, BA.5, is considered the easiest to transmit. Experts warn that people infected with the original omicron strain during the winter are now susceptible to BA.5 infection.

Thomas Murray, an associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine, said the “coronavirus” turned out to be a virus that was very intelligent at evolving and collecting mutations.

“As long as you have circulating strains that mutate to not be killed by the antibodies you produced from a previous infection, you will not be able to achieve that herd immunity,” says Murray.

Although hopes for herd immunity are dwindling and infections and hospitalizations increasing, many Americans appear to have turned to COVID-19. Fewer and fewer Americans see COVID-19 as a major threat to public health, but an increasing number of people see it as a minor threat or not at all, according to some. whether recently? poll.

“While we are still seeing many people being hospitalized and suffering from serious illnesses, it seems we have come to accept more that this is going to be with us in the long run,” says Murray.

However, experts agree that the number of cases, deaths and hospitalizations is currently too high.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial University, “Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a virus that is friendly to the common cold, this is like catching a cold. stuck on a roller coaster in a horror movie.” London, wrote in a comment article This month is titled “Where’s Herd Immunity?”

“There is nothing cold or friendly about when a large portion of the workforce needs to take significant time off work, feel terrible, and sometimes have multiple relapses, just weeks apart,” continued Altmann.

So, with re-infections increasingly common, what is the end game for COVID-19?

“As long as the virus continues to evolve, herd immunity will be very difficult to achieve, unless someone is able to create a vaccine that protects against multiple variants, including including evolved new variants.

Vaccine Update Provides Rays of Hope

Food and Drug Administration experts last month told Vaccine makers update their shots as U.S. health officials plan to launch a new booster in the fall, pending regulatory approval.

But the vaccination trend doesn’t create a high appetite for shots.

According to CDC dataonly 48% of those who were fully immunized received a booster shot and only 27% of those who received the first booster received a second shot.

However, some people hope that with the right message, more people can be persuaded to get specific pictures of omicrons if they are authorized.

“If there is strong evidence that these are more helpful to circulating variants than existing vaccines, I very much hope that that message can be portrayed and disseminated,” says Murray. variable.

In the future, many have predicted that the COVID-19 vaccine could become an annual shot toward whatever variant is in circulation — similar to the flu vaccine.

“For that to happen, what you need to achieve is seasonality, or some kind of pattern,” says Murray. “And we’re not there yet.”

Instead, the US is in a “transition phase”, Murray said, in which it is waiting for such nudges. Meanwhile, more people will be infected with BA.5, but it is unlikely that the mitigation measures will come back in earnest.

Even with increased infections and hospitalizations, Americans have shown little interest in putting in place mitigation measures like wearing masks, even though the CDC introduce Most Americans consider this measure when in indoor public spaces.

“One of the challenges we all face is two and a half years…everyone is exhausted, sick and tired of COVID,” says Murray. “Unless you make significant changes, it’s going to be really hard to get people to start wearing regular masks back in indoor spaces. I just don’t think there’s an appetite. “