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You can get COVID twice. Should you be scared?

Julia Hernandez
Sep 12, 2020
2 min read

Updated: Sep 21, 2020

When we were about ready to have a great summer, everything stopped. The spread of a virus referred to as COVID-19 was suddenly all over the news. We could not go outside, and before we knew it, we were living in a pandemic. Could this get any worse?

Well, now it is confirmed that you can get COVID twice. As of September 2, 2020, there are 25.9 Million cases of COVID-19. For the first 3 months, this virus was expected to be an immunizing non-relapsing disease - meaning that once you get it, you’ll never get it again.

But then came a 33 year old man from Hong Kong during August 15 of 2020, the first confirmed case of COVID reinfection. He had no symptoms and his first case was mild. Nevertheless, his case was not severe, and he would have probably lived not knowing he got it again. But basing one man’s experience for millions or billions of others is dodgy.

A case from Reno, Nevada, of a 25 year old man having SARS-CoV-2 boggled scientists' minds as he had gotten worse the second time around. They later found out that the two were distinct and that it had been a new infection.

Some suggest that because the HK man’s initial case was mild, his immunological memory did not register the virus well enough to identify and respond to it.

However, those same memory T cells and immunological memory that did not respond are the same types which might have saved millions today.

This works by letting your body know there are antigens that have previously been in the body's system. The memory T cells recognize the previous virus/infection and have a better chance of fighting it off - ensuring that the antigen does not thrive.

Bertolotti and his team found that all those who recently recovered from the virus produced T cells that recognize multiple parts of SARS-CoV-2, and in another test, they looked at blood samples from 23 people who had survived SARS-CoV.

Their study showed that the T cells still had memory acquired in response to SARS-CoV-1 from 17 years ago. Those same T cells recognized parts of the coronavirus as well.

This is good news. For us, this means that our body has a natural response to fighting back COVID-19 again, and that the immune memory should prevent reinfection. And if it does not, it should starve off. The fact is that we do not become immune to this virus when we recover; rather, it is likely that our bodies become inhospitable hosts. Even so, we are not done yet, there are many questions yet to be answered like, “Is the reinfected virus still infectious?” “How long do the T cells' memory last?” and many more that we’ll get to know over time. But for now, staying updated and following protocols are our best defense mechanisms against COVID-19.

Getting COVID twice. It is rare, but it is possible.