Researchers at Mount Sinai have been following a population of Marine recruits for months and say their results show the chance of re-infection may be higher than previously thought.
Mount Sinai partnered with the U.S. Navy to study the spread of COVID-19 among Marine recruits who undergo a strict two-week quarantine and rigorous testing before being sent to basic training.
Researchers tested thousands of quarantined recruits for active cases and for COVID-19 antibodies, and then followed the recruits after they began their training to track cases.
By comparing recruits who had antibodies with recruits who had no known history of COVID-19, “what we can see is that having previous infection and developing antibodies to the virus in the future only gave those Marines about a little more than 80% protection. So the risk of getting infection again is almost a fifth of what it is if you have no evidence of previous infection,” explained Dr. Stuart Sealfon, a professor of neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and leader of a study.
The study showed that even among healthy young adults, recovering from COVID-19 and developing antibodies to the virus reduced the risk of getting sick again by about 80%.
“You have considerable protection against infection again, it’s not as if you have no protection. But you still have a fairly high risk, approximately a fifth,” said Dr. Sealfon.
“There is a general view that reinfection is extremely rare… but I think it is important to recognize that - certainly in this population, and there is evidence in other groups - it is not rare, it’s potentially a quite common phenomenon.”
In other words, people who have already been infected do not have a “free pass” to engage in risky behaviors.
“You still need to wear masks, you still need to be careful, you still could become infected without knowing it and give it to someone else who’s more vulnerable. You remain at high risk of infection and you should get vaccinated.”
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