Of course there's reinfection:

[PCIntern]

And it’s going to manifest itself about now the way you can get another cold four, five, or six months later. This is not some wishful thinking exercise: this is a real coronavirus which does what coronaviruses do. It is also probably a self mutating virus and is seen by the body as a different entity than the previous one which infected, or it is more than entirely possible that the immunity is minimal after some number of weeks or months. It is going to be an endemic virus, and we are going to live and die with it.

When I was in school we asked the virology professor why there was no vaccine for the common cold which caused tremendous numbers of hours to be lost in the workplace each year, and also lead to more serious complications in infirm individuals. His response was that if we could’ve had one we would’ve had one. But we can’t have one because it’s not so easy.

It is not random that we are beginning to see reinfections in areas where in early cases were noted. It all does in fact make good sense. The fact the common sense is not prevalent these days, the virus has no issue with. Because, the virus doesn’t care what you think, what do you feel, or what you think should be the case. It’s going to do what it’s going to do: it’s like the story with the scorpion and the frog: the frog is the victim because the scorpion does what scorpions do.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Great anaology....Scorpion and COVID-19

COVID will do what Scorpions will do. Attack and kill while it's venom takes its time to infect and kill. It cares NOTHING for its victims.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. The virus is like a Republican.

That's just what they do.

[CloudWatcher]

3. Sadly it's always been true ... "Common sense is not so common." - Voltaire (n/t)

[barbtries]

4. many years ago

i asked my chemist BIL when we were going to get a cure for the common cold, and his answer was that there never would be, because the common cold is not common. same thing - the bug changes.

[DSandra]

5. So basically we could get reinfected by it till it kills us..

Each infection will do increasing damage till we die by it or it’s complications.

Good thing Trump has let this virus flourish in this country... this country is well on its way of declining to the level of a poor African nation, complete with diseases and mass poverty and civil wars.

[Bonhomme Richard]

6. I have told people from the beginning that....

this is a cold and will act like colds. I also told them that if it were as easy as they are making it sound creating a vaccine then why hasn't anyone made a vaccine for the common cold. they would make a monetary killing if they did.

[Klaralven]

7. In the first provable reinfection, the second case was asymptomatic. Is that generally true?

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-first-case-reinfection-man-hong-kong

[Salviati]

9. We just don't have enough information to say anything about the issue.

You can't make generalizations when n = 1

Particularly with this virus, which seems to hit different people in strikingly different ways.

[2naSalit]

10. +1

[Ms. Toad]

21. One of those confirmed by genome sequencing was worse than the first infection.

During the 1st infection in April, patient recovered after about a month in isolation, testing negative for viral RNA in 2 subsequent tests. Patient was well until end of May, became ill and tested positive 2nd time. This time needing hospitalization & oxygen support. (2/n)

Link to tweet

[Klaralven]

24. Thanks.

[uponit7771]

27. Crap, do they know if its a different strain the second time? That's less than 2 months for reinfect

[Ms. Toad]

28. Yes - that is how they confirmed it was a second infection,

rather than a relaps, failure to completely recover, etc.

The variant was enough different that it would not have been a mutation within that person; it had to have come in the form of a new exposure/infection.

[Chichiri]

8. There's a misconception about comparing covid to the cold

Only about 20% of colds are caused by coronaviruses; the rest are caused by other kinds of viruses, each of which would need its own vaccine. So spending all those millions on researching, testing, and producing a coronavirus cold vaccine that is, say, 75% effective, would result in a product whose tagine is, "Prevents 15% of all colds!" Probably not going to make a profit. That's why we don't have a cold vaccine.

But there is an incredible amount of demand, and thus an enormous potential profit, for a covid vaccine. That's why we're going to have one in months. Yes, covid will always be with us from now on, and we might have to take the vaccine at intervals, like a flu shot. But things will go back to normal in time.

[Ferrets are Cool]

11. What you say is correct about Covid 19...we could also have a Covid 20

next year. All of our life is a gamble.

[IronLionZion]

12. Common Human Coronaviruses

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.html

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_causes


Most colds are rhinoviruses. There are also plenty of colds that are completely unknown types of viruses

[Warpy]

13. Reinfection is not illness

Reinfection happens all the time but if we have recovered from a virus previously, our immune systems go to work quickly and take care of the reinfection before we know it's thee. That's how immunity works.

What we haven't seen and are unlikely to see is a second or subsequent illness from this bug, not unless it mutates sufficiently to dodge the immune system. While that is entirely possible over time, there hasn't been enough time for that to happen. Mutations that have occurred are sufficient to track different strains to the probable geographic source, but that's it.

Coronavirus isn't the only cold virus out there, meaning that cold you had in January is usually completely unrelated to the one you get in March. In addition to coronavirus colds, there are also rhinoviruses A, B, and C, parainfluenza, and RSV colds. There are at least 200 distinct viruses known to cause colds, which is why there is no vaccine for them.

We might see second cases documented down the road, but we haven't seen them so far. In addition, the asymptomatic man in Hong Kong who was randomly retested months after his recovery could easily have been shedding viral debris instead of live virus, the debris coming from fast action by his immune system. The point is that he didn't have a second illness.

Also consider that there has been no documented second illness from MERS, another coronavirus that showed antibody titers falling off a cliff after a few months. Antibodies are only part of the story of the human immune system.

[denem]

14. "there has been no documented second illness from MERS"

MERS and SARS-CoV-2 are not comparable. A virus with a reported mortality rate of 35+% is going to die out quickly, one way or another.

[Warpy]

15. It would without an extensive reservoir in camels

Camels get a mild respiratory illness from it. Humans were not so fortunate.

The virus is still there. No one has had the illness twice.

[denem]

16. No one has had the illness twice.

Certainly 35% of them have not.

[Ms. Toad]

20. We've already seen documented second cases.

Now we're able to confirm by DNA that they are second cases.

One example (from earlier w/o genome sequencing):

My patient, however, cleared his infection — he had two negative PCR tests after his first infection — and felt healthy for nearly six weeks.

I believe it is far more likely that my patient fully recovered from his first infection, then caught Covid-19 a second time after being exposed to a young adult family member with the virus. He was unable to get an antibody test after his first infection, so we do not know whether his immune system mounted an effective antibody response or not.

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity

And now this:

During the 1st infection in April, patient recovered after about a month in isolation, testing negative for viral RNA in 2 subsequent tests. Patient was well until end of May, became ill and tested positive 2nd time. This time needing hospitalization & oxygen support. (2/n)

Link to tweet

?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1299342270177726464%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F%3Fcom%3Dview_postforum%3D1002pid%3D13987365

Herein, we describe the data from an investigation of two instances of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the same individual. Through nucleic acid sequence analysis, the viruses associated with each instance of infection were found to possess a degree of genetic discordance that cannot be explained reasonably through short-term in vivo evolution. We conclude that it is possible for humans to become infected multiple times by SARS-CoV-2, but the generalizability of this finding is not known.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3681489

[LisaL]

22. You are wrong.

There have already been confirmed documented re-infections with covid.

[Warpy]

32. Links?

I haven't seen anything that wasn't later explained as allergies, flu, and the common cold.

[roamer65]

25. They have found an antibody in former SARS-CoV-1 patients that is extremely effective.

It is called S309 and saw an article on it. It binds to the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins and renders the virus useless.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2349-y

[Warpy]

31. Not surprising, the SARScov1 and SARScov2 share 80% of the genome

as well as the protein binding sites.

[Ms. Toad]

17. Agreed.

I've been skeptical about creating a vaccine for a virus in the family of the common cold for as long as I've known it was in the family that is responsible for a significant number of colds.

[ismnotwasm]

18. We have a patient who is probably reinfected

Can’t go into too much detail, but our Infectious disease team thought reinfection “unlikely” but not impossible. Patient has been hospitalized more than once with positive covid

[roamer65]

23. The schedule of vaccination when developed will probably be similar to influenza.

Every 6 months to 1 year to cover the constant mutations.

I am hoping the monoclonal antibody therapy gets delivered first. That has the best chance of success right now.

This will not be like measles or mumps. It won’t be a shot and ur good for life kinda paradigm.

[Silent3]

26. There's no "of course" about this. And even when/if it happens, what's the effect?

So far, out of many millions of COVID cases world wide, re-infection appears to be a curiosity that pops up now and then, not a major phenomenon. Plus, not every reported case of reinfection has been rigorously confirmed. Since the various tests do yield false positives sometimes, some supposed reinfections might only be bad data.

Bad data can also result from people who were first falsely diagnosed with COVID, then later accurately diagnosed with COVID.

Could risk of reinfection change over time, with reinfection becoming more common because immunity due to past infection fades out, and not enough time has passed to see a big effect from that? Sure. But again, there's no "of course" about that happening.

Further, I have yet to hear of a case of re-infection (apart from this recent one in Nevada) with serious symptoms, and nothing about if, or to what degree, these supposedly reinfected individuals pose a threat of contagion. If anyone has been reinfected AND then has become seriously ill or contagious, that must also be a rare phenomenon so far.

An analogy to the common cold is inapt, because "the" common cold isn't actually any one disease, but multiple strains of cold viruses that mutate very quickly. So far COVID doesn't seen to mutate very quickly.

[PCIntern]

29. It's early yet.

[Silent3]

30. Yes, it is. So there's a *chance* reinfection will be a serious problem...

...not an "of course" it will be a serious problem.