Finally, do antibodies protect us from re-infection / new variants? Here is what is known so far!

There is new evidence linking the presence of antibodies from a previous infection with a significantly lower risk of becoming infected again in the future.

A study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine on Wednesday, February 24, found that people who tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies were less likely to get Covid again than those who did not have antibodies.

"The results from the study are basically a 10-fold reduction, but I would have warnings about that. In other words, it could be an overestimation of the reduction. It could be an underestimation of the reduction," said study author Dr. Douglas Lowy: "The main message is that having antibodies is associated with partial protection against a new infection."

The researchers examined data on more than 3.2 million people in the United States who had completed a Covid-19 antibody test.

Overall, the study is observational and suggests that there is a link between positive Covid-19 antibody test results and a lower risk of infection about 90 days later - but more research is needed to determine a causal link and to what extent protection against antibodies may take time.

Lowy said more research is needed to determine the risk of re-infection from one of the new variants of the coronavirus.

"Now that these disturbing variants exist, what are the results for these cases? The short answer is that we do not know," says Dr. Lowy.

It is already known that most patients cured of Covid-19 have antibodies and re-infection seems to be rare so far - but it is still unclear about "how long the antibody protection will last due to the natural infection".

Doctors point out that in all cases, vaccination is still recommended.

Source: CNN