Do we finally have an answer on Covid immunity?

How likely are you to be reinfected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus for a second time? It is a pertinent question because, at present, all government policy is predicated on the assumption that developing Covid-19 cannot be relied upon to offer you any immunity from reinfection whatsoever. Remember the Prime Minister telling us from his Number 10 flat, where he was incarcerated for 10 days after being ‘pinged’ by NHS Test and Trace, that it didn’t matter that he had already had the disease and must be ‘bursting with antibodies’ – he had to do his duty and self-isolate nonetheless? Not only are we forcing previous sufferers from Covid-19 to self-isolate just in case they have managed to catch it a second time, we are also administering the Pfizer vaccine regardless of whether someone has had the virus or not. 

In April, the government briefly dabbled with the idea of ‘Immunity passports’ which would allow people who had suffered from the disease once to return to normal life – Matt Hancock said he had a ‘strong interest’ in the idea, funnily enough on the day he returned to work after contracting the disease himself.

But it never got further than an idea – and since then government ministers and scientific advisers have tended to say there is evidence that you can be reinfected.