How well does prior exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus protect you against reinfection? It has been a hotly-debated subject since the first trickle of reported cases of reinfection with the virus began to be reported last spring. Now, a study involving 16,000 students from South Carolina has attempted to quantify the protective effect of natural infection.
The students involved in the study, which is published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, were each swabbed for a PCR test last autumn, as a condition of being allowed to return to campus. They were swabbed again this spring in similar circumstances.
Out of 16,101 students, 2,021 were found to be infected in the autumn. Of these, 44 – or 2.2 per cent – also returned positive tests in the spring. By contrast, of the students who tested negative last autumn, 12.1
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