A growing number of Kiwis appear to be getting reinfected with Covid-19 - despite many of them being vaccinated and a belief that antibodies from one bout should protect you to some extent from getting it again.
One such person is Sam Tipping, who first contracted the disease during the Alpha wave. More recently, he caught the Omicron variant.
Tipping says that while there were only minor differences when it came to symptoms, it was the stark change in public attitude in the dividing years between the two strains that really struck him.
An apparent spike in the number of people getting the virus twice has some experts calling for a greater focus on reinfections. (Source: 1News)
“In terms of the headspace around it - the first one you are almost ostracised from the community whereas the last one everyone has been trying to catch it,” he says.
Tipping never believed he was immune from a second infection, even with two jabs and a booster shot.
“I never thought I was invincible and did think I'd catch it again it was just a matter of what the symptoms were and what kind of effect it would have on my body."
And according to epidemiologist Michael Baker, data overseas shows reinfections on the rise.
“In the UK now about 10% of cases are classified as reinfections. Some people, unfortunately, have been documented as having the infection three or four times now.”
But in Aotearoa, Baker says it's unknown what number of Covid-19 cases are reinfections as the Ministry of Health doesn’t collect that data.
“We should definitely look at reinfection as a key measure in New Zealand and it should be relatively quite easy to do.”
According to Malaghan Institute clinical immunologist, Dr Maia Brewerton, understanding the link between Covid-19 variants and our immune response will be one of the keys to developing effective vaccines.
“The virus keeps changing. It’s continually trying to outsmart us so it’s this sort of to and fro between our immune system and a virus that’s evolving to change.”
SHARE ME