According to a recent study, getting COVID-19 again increases a person’s risk of dying and of being hospitalised by three times.
People who were infected more than once did not fare any better in terms of survival or hospitalisation rates based on vaccination or booster status.
According to Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, research author, “reinfection with COVID-19 increases the likelihood of both acute outcomes and protracted COVID.” This was visible in boosted, vaccinated, and unboosted individuals.
The findings was released in the journal Nature Medicine on Thursday.
Data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs was examined by researchers:
- 443,588 people have contracted SARS-CoV-2 for the first time.
- 40,947 individuals who experienced two or more infections
- Data from 5.3 million individuals who had not been exposed to the coronavirus served as the control group.
According to a press release from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, “During the past few months, there’s been an air of invincibility among people who have had COVID-19 or their vaccinations and boosters, and especially among people who have had an infection and also received vaccines; some people started to [refer] to these individuals as having a sort of superimmunity to the virus.” Without a doubt, our research demonstrated that contracting an infection a second, third, or fourth time increases the risk of health problems both during the acute phase, which refers to the first 30 days following infection, and during the months that follow, which refers to the extended COVID phase.
Additionally, having COVID-19 infection more than once greatly raised the likelihood of getting lung, heart, or brain disorders. Over the course of six months, the hazards continued.
The majority of the data in the study, according to the researchers, came from white men.
The Veterans Affairs sample does not represent the overall community, a specialist who was not part in the study told Reuters. According to John Moore, PhD, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, patients at VA medical facilities are typically older and have more severe health issues.
Al-Aly urged people to exercise caution as they make preparations for the Christmas season, according to Reuters.
He told Reuters: “We had started to observe a lot of people come to the clinic with an aura of invincibility.” “Does acquiring an illness again really matter, they questioned. The answer is unquestionably yes.”
