How Does Receiving a Breakthrough Case of Covid Affect My Immunity?

Experts are also careful not to knowingly try to become infected as a way to gain hybrid immunity. An infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center, Dr. “I’m really worried that people will be intentionally infected in order to get into this ‘new normal’,” said Celine Gounder. The virus is unpredictable and even young people can get very sick. “Something could go wrong and they might end up going to the hospital,” he said. In addition, it is impossible to know who may develop Covid for a long time after an infection.

How much does hybrid immunity protect you?

Infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said that boosting immunity from a natural infection can be similar to getting a fourth dose of the vaccine. Hybrid immunity can also occur if you are vaccinated or infected before being vaccinated.

Here is why. When you’re first vaccinated or infected with a virus, your immune system takes some time to respond. But your immune system has a long memory. It reacts faster and develops more antibodies the next time it detects the virus. The effect seems even more pronounced in both vaccinated and infected persons.

a recent study showed significantly higher antibody levels compared to a vaccinated control group without natural infections. Fikadu Tafesse, an immunologist at Oregon Health and Science University who helped lead the research, said that although the study was done before the Omicron wave, the findings show a largely high level of protection after a breakthrough infection.

“Superimmunity maybe overkill, but we do know that the latest studies show that hybrid immunity is really due to immune players known as memory B cells,” said Anita Gupta, assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Medical School. “Once some of the short-lived immune cells are gone, these memory B cells will last for a while.”

But here’s the bad news: Exactly how much extra protection you get and how long it takes will vary from person to person, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. And a person who is immunocompromised or older or at higher risk of serious illness will likely produce fewer antibodies than a younger, healthy person, and their antibody levels may drop more quickly.

It is also unclear whether the severity of the disease affects the level of hybrid protection. Dr. A person with severe symptoms may have been exposed to greater amounts of the virus, which would trigger more antibodies and therefore greater protection, Iwasaki said. A person who is asymptomatic may not have a strong immune response to the virus and may be more susceptible to re-infection.