How soon can you get covid? 28 Days What Experts Say – Here’s How To Protect Yourself

My case links the rising slope of the third Omicron wave in seven months, which is currently sweeping across Australia.

Trembling with my mild combat, I thought optimistically that at least I would get several months off the precautions and trials of isolation. But emerging evidence suggests the potential for re-infection within a shorter time frame for the new subtypes.

Experts have reduced the protective window of prior infection from 12 weeks to 28 days. This week, the governments of New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory announced that people who have had COVID before will need to be tested after 28 days if they experience symptoms. If positive, they will be treated as new cases.

Re-infection – continuing to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) after recovering from a prior infection. Re-infections accounted for 1% of all cases in the pre-Omicron period in England, but in recent weeks it accounted for more than 25% of daily cases and in New York City 18%.

We do not yet have comparative Australian data, but given the emergence of the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants here, it will likely be a similar story. These are more easily transmitted and are able to cause successful infection in previously vaccinated or infected people.

Understanding our risk of reinfection on an individual level is easy if we break it down into four major factors: the virus, each person’s immune response to a previous infection, vaccination status, and personal protective measures. We can’t do much about the first two factors, but we can act on the latter two.

virus

Much has been written about the immune system-evolving characteristics of omicron subvariants due to several new mutations of the SARS-CoV2 spike protein.

Pre-omicron, a variant (alpha, beta, delta) infection of COVID gave long-lasting cross-variant immunity. It also provided effective protection against symptomatic infections.

However, all that changed with the emergence of the Omicron ba.1 subvariant in late 2021, with studies demonstrating less cross-protection from prior infection that was associated with less robust antibody responses.

Fast forward several months, and we can see that even infection with the early omicron subvariants (BA.1, BA.2) does not necessarily protect us from their new siblings (BA.4, BA.5) .

Our response to past infection

How our immune system deals with past COVID infections can affect the way we interact with future exposure.

We know that immune-suppressed individuals are at increased risk of re-infection (or indeed relapses of persistent infection).

The UK’s large COVID Infection Survey shows that in the general population, people who report no symptoms or have a low concentration of the virus on their PCR swabs with their prior infection, compared to those with symptoms or high viral concentrations. are more likely to be re-infected.

This indicates that when the body mounts a more robust immune response to the first infection, it creates protection against re-infection. Perhaps a thin silver lining for those who shivered, coughed and sobbed through COVID!

vaccination status

When COVID vaccination was being introduced in 2021, they provided excellent protection against serious illness (resulting in hospitalization or death) and symptomatic infections.

Importantly, protection against severe disease is still intact, as our immune system reacts against parts of the virus that have not mutated from the original strain. But Omicron variants can infect people even if they have been vaccinated because the variants have found ways to avoid “neutralization” from vaccine antibodies.

A new study shows that six months after a second dose of mRNA vaccination (such as Pfizer and Moderna), antibody levels against all Omicron subvariants drop significantly compared to the original (Wuhan) strain. That is, the vaccine’s ability to protect against infection with subvariants declines more rapidly than with the original strain of the virus.

Antibody levels rose again in all variants two weeks after the participants’ booster shot, but BA.4 and BA.5 showed the smallest incremental benefit. Interestingly, in this study (and relevant to our highly immunized population), there were higher antibody levels in subjects who had been infected and vaccinated. Again, the gain for the new Omicron subvariant was small.

personal security

Much of the discussion of late has been about the immunity-evolving ability of COVID. But don’t forget that the virus still has to cause re-infection in our respiratory tract.

SARS-CoV-2 is spread from person to person in the air through respiratory droplets and aerosols and by touching contaminated surfaces.

We can prevent transmission by doing what we’ve been taught over the past two years – social distancing and wearing masks when we can’t (preferably not a cloth), washing our hands regularly, improving ventilation by opening windows To do and use An air purifier for poorly ventilated places. And we can fall apart when we’re sick.

A re-infected future?

There is some optimistic recent data showing that while reinfection may be common, it is rarely associated with serious disease. It also shows that booster shots offer some modest protection.

While some (unfortunate) individuals have been re-infected within a short time frame (less than 90 days), this appears to be uncommon and is related to being young and mostly uninfected.

Plans for the rollout of mRNA booster vaccines to target oomicron spike protein mutations hold promise to regain some of the immunological control of these variants. That said, it will only be a matter of time before further mutations develop.

The bottom line is that it will be difficult to avoid becoming infected with or re-infected with a COVID variant in the coming years.

We can’t do much about the virus or the development of our immune system, but we can dramatically reduce the risk of serious infections in ourselves (and our loved ones) and disruptions in our lives by staying up to date with vaccinations. Following simple infection-control practices. (conversation) AIIMS

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.

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