People who have had COVID-19 this month are at higher risk of reinfection

It’s that time again — Everyone around you is starting to get COVID-19. Since many people have already contracted the disease, it is possible that people will experience their second, third or even fourth round of infection.

According to Bloomberg, experts expect that new variants of the virus will reduce people’s immunity. They suggest people who had COVID-19 in December, when the country experienced one of its biggest waves, are currently at risk of being infected again.

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The variants responsible for the incoming wave of cases are subvariants of Omicron, making them more contagious than previous iterations of the virus. They also appear to be better equipped to avoid vaccination protection and post-infection immunity.

To make matters worse, this new wave of COVID-19 occurs in a very confusing space. People are increasingly getting tested at home, rarely reporting to authorities, so experts know little about where we are in the pandemic. States and counties are also less likely to report COVID-19 numbers to the responsible parties, leaving public health professionals at a loss as to what happens next.

“The reality is that things are really not going well at the moment,” said infectious disease expert Jacob Lemieux. “We all thought we were in for a respite after the devastating Omicron wave. And that was clearly the case up until a few weeks ago.”

Vaccines are still doing their job, keeping people out of hospitals and preventing deaths, but we’re entering an interesting moment where we have no reference for how things will work. People have never been more relaxed about the virus, wearing masks or following any guidelines. This suggests that once the wave has started, it may not drop as quickly as it did earlier in the year when people were still taking protective measures against the virus.

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The immunity of those who have had COVID depends on the variant they caught. For example, the journal Nature published a recent study showing that those infected with the delta variant had little immunity to different variants. New variants and subvariants make this all the more likely because they are better at bypassing the natural defenses of infection.

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During these COVID-19 spikes, experts are going back to the advice they’ve given over the past two years. They suggest masking when people have comorbidities or vulnerabilities, or when the area they live in has a high rate of infection. As always, vaccinations are vital to prevent serious infections and hospitalization.