Do You Need to Vaccinate Again

MIT Medical answers your COVID-nineteen questions. Got a question nearly COVID-19? Send it to u.s.a. at CovidQ@mit.edu, and we'll do our best to provide an answer.

I have a friend who survived COVID-19 back in December 2020. I recollect speaking to him on the phone when he was cocky-isolating. He was coughing so much that he couldn't fifty-fifty talk. Now he keeps request when he tin come visit. He says he doesn't need to get vaccinated, simply I think he should go vaccinated just similar everyone else if he wants to visit friends. Am I correct?

Yep, you are correct. According to CDC guidance and everything nosotros know of the science, your friend absolutely should be vaccinated. That's because we have been able to ostend that people who have recovered from COVID-nineteen tin can go reinfected. While current prove suggests that reinfection doesn't usually occur during the first couple of months after recovery from COVID-19, the risk of reinfection increases with time, every bit immunity from natural infection decreases. New viral variants may increase the risk of reinfection fifty-fifty more.

Recent enquiry from China demonstrates the danger of depending on immunity caused from natural infection. In this study, published last month, researchers looked for antibodies confronting SARS-CoV-2 in blood samples taken from more than 9,000 people in Wuhan, the original COVID-19 epicenter, over the course of almost nine months — first in Apr 2020, after the city'southward lockdown was lifted; then once again in June; and, finally, between October and December. The team found that about seven percent of the population had been infected with the virus at some point, but fewer than 40 percentage of recovered individuals produced "neutralizing antibodies" — antibodies capable of preventing reinfection. Their conclusion? Even Wuhan cannot achieve herd immunity and prevent a resurgence of the epidemic without mass vaccination.

Your friend should become his vaccination as soon equally he is eligible. In general, CDC guidelines let someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 to get vaccinated equally soon equally they take recovered from their illness (if they had symptoms) and/or once they've met criteria for discontinuing isolation. The simply exception is for individuals who were treated with passive antibody therapy — monoclonal antibodies or ambulatory plasma — while they were ill. Because that kind of treatment can interfere with the trunk'due south immune response to the vaccine, those individuals need to look at least 90 days before they can get vaccinated.

Getting vaccinated has benefits for vaccinated individuals, of class, but it may as well aid to protect entire communities, including children, who are not yet eligible for vaccination. For case, a recent Israeli study of 223 communities institute that in the weeks after older people had received the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine, the infection risk amongst children under 16 in the same community dropped in direct proportion to the percentage of adults who had been vaccinated.

Yous don't mention if your friend has suffered whatsoever lasting effects of his bout with COVID-19, but there are some indications that vaccination may have the unanticipated benefit of providing relief for "long-haulers" — the upwardly to 30 percentage of individuals who endure lingering symptoms of COVID-19 illness, frequently referred to as "long COVID." Much of the show for the benefits of vaccination in this grouping remains anecdotal. However, a small, not-yet-peer-reviewed U.Thousand. written report found that roughly 23 pct of long-haulers experienced an "increase in symptom resolution" after vaccination, compared with only about 15 percent of those who remained unvaccinated.

Nosotros've all spent the last year dreaming about a return to normal life, and the vaccine is one of the well-nigh powerful tools to get the states there. Simply vaccination is not only a means of ensuring stiff immunity, reducing lingering symptoms, and protecting others; it can also give your friend the peace of mind that comes from knowing that he almost certainly will never to take to go through severe COVID-19 disease again. Nosotros hope that yous'll encourage your friend to get vaccinated when he can and that the two of yous are able to savour a safe and happy visit in the not-too-afar futurity.

This news story has not been updated since the date shown. Data contained in this story may be outdated. For current data about MIT Medical'south services, delight see relevant areas of the MIT Medical website.

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Source: https://medical.mit.edu/covid-19-updates/2021/04/ive-had-covid-do-i-need-vaccine

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