Can you get coronavirus twice? - SILive.com

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — It’s a question that’s been on the minds of the average Joe and brilliant medical scientists, alike: If you’ve already had the coronavirus (COVID-19), can you get it again?

It is not common, but it does happen, researchers are finding.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that repeat exposure to COVID-19 may boost immunity, yet it also noted several studies that found waning antibodies after a few months.

On Staten Island, reinfection has been documented and immunity is being studied in both of the Island’s hospital systems.

“We do have multiple cases of people who got COVID a second time,’' said Dr. Thomas Gut, a specialist in internal medicine and the medical director at the Northwell Health’s Post-COVID Recovery Center at Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze. “It’s not particularly common, but it does occur.’'

Researchers tracking coronavirus patients at the recovery center are finding that antibody loss is varied and very unpredictable among patients who have recovered from both serious and mild cases of the virus, Gut told the Advance/SILive.com.

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Though the immune system produces antibodies, which are proteins critical for fighting infection, and scientists know they provide immunity post-infection, no one knows yet for sure how long the COVID-19 antibodies last or what level of immunity they provide.

Blood tests, known as serology testing, detect COVID antibodies, which have been found to be present in patients anywhere from three to five months after the infection phase, Gut has observed.

Yet, researchers on Staten Island have also seen them disappear within a month, he said.

A researcher at Staten Island University Hospital's Post-COVID Recovery Center. Though the immune system produces antibodies, which are proteins critical for fighting infection, and scientists know they provide immunity post-infection, no one knows yet for sure how long the coronavirus antibodies last or what level of immunity they provide. (Courtesy of Northwell Health)

Other studies, including a study of 34 people who had recovered from mild cases of COVID-19 by researchers at The New England Journal of Medicine supports the SIUH findings that COVID antibody loss is occurring more quickly than initially expected. Researchers in that study urged caution on the part of recovered COVID patients to avoid reinfection.

At SIUH, Gut said that in fairly extreme cases, he’s treated patients who had been so ill that they needed to be intubated, put on a ventilator in the ICU, and “never, at any point, mounted any kind of antibody response.”

Though it is quite unlikely patients will be reinfected with COVID-19, Gut urged those who have already been infected with COVID-19 to continue to be cautious.

“The only thing we definitely know is: Six feet away, stay home as much as possible,’' he told the Advance. “Keep your mask on. As we go further and further, those basics from the beginning become more and more true. Antibodies don’t definitely protect you from getting COVID again.’'

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