Catching the new coronavirus does not immunize for life, we knew that.
It was also known, especially since a British study carried out by Imperial College London, and published last month, that the immunity acquired after having passed through the disease, decreases "quite rapidly", in particular in asymptomatic patients, and does not could last only a few months.
But then how long can we consider ourselves safe?
A new study of UK caregivers finds that people who have been infected with covid-19 are very unlikely to contract it again for six months.
Between April and November, the University of Oxford and the university hospitals of the prestigious English city carried out testing campaigns with 12,180 caregivers.
"This still-ongoing study involving a large cohort of caregivers has shown that a Covid-19 infection offers protection against re-infection for most people for at least six months," one of the authors, Professor David Eyre of the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford.
"We found no new symptomatic infections in the participants who had tested positive for antibodies (1 246 people, Editor's note), while 89 of those who had tested negative (for antibodies) contracted the virus", with symptoms, he said.
And three caregivers with antibodies tested positive for Covid-19 but were all in good health and showed no symptoms.
Certainly "the antibody levels decrease over time" but "there is some immunity in those who have been infected," he said.
Among the 36 million people in the world who are now considered cured, cases of reinfection are rare.
The researchers will continue their study of the caregiver cohort to see "how long the protection lasts and if a previous infection affects the severity of the infection if people are infected again".
Evaluating the duration of immunity from a first infection is an essential part of the global vaccine strategy.
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The Oxford study does not say whether immune people can carry the virus, and therefore contaminate others.
