GREENSBORO, N.C. — The COVID-19 pandemic is seemingly never-ending yet ever-evolving. Researchers are racing against the clock to find out all of its facts and long-term effects, all while trying to develop a vaccine.
VERIFY QUESTION
Good Morning Show viewer Weslyn tweeted at WFMY News 2's Meghann Mollerus asking for information on whether people can contract COVID-19 twice. She said there is so much information floating around Facebook, and she'd like facts.
VERIFY SOURCES
- Cynthia Snider, MD - Cone Health medical director of infection prevention
- Kelly Connor - NC Department of Health and Human Services communications manager
- Centers for Disease Control
- "Reinfection could not occur in SARS-CoV-2 infected rhesus macaques" paper from Peking Union Medical College Hospital
VERIFY PROCESS
On the CDC's page of "frequently-asked questions" about COVID-19, it explains it does not yet understand the immune response -- including duration of immunity. But, patients who have contracted other beta-coronaviruses, like MERS, are unlikely to be re-infected shortly after recovery.
Kelly Connor, a communications manager with NC DHHS, explained, "We (NC DHHS) are aware of cases where individuals have tested positive, then negative, then positive again, but work is ongoing to understand if these instances are a re-infection, intermittent viral shedding or a false positive / negative test result."
Cynthia Snider, MD, the medical director of infection prevention for Cone Health, agreed.
"We don't think we have seen someone who has been infected twice. There is a paper or two to suggest you have immunity for a few months, but this is a novel virus, and it is too early to make conclusions..." she said.
In looking for those papers, the VERIFY team located a published research study from Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, China. Scientists infected a group of primates (macaques) with COVID-19. The animals got very sick but recovered. The scientists then re-infected some of the original group and found those primates did not develop detectable signs of the virus. They did, however, develop even stronger antibodies than after their first recovery.
VERIFY CONCLUSION
Can a person contract COVID-19 more than once? At least one reputable study suggests it is unlikely, but the health experts cited above believe it is too early to VERIFY for certain.
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