Don't wear a mask and don't get vaccinated

New crown patients may be "recruited" within one to two years

  Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, October 21 (Reporter Liu Xia) According to the British "Nature" website on the 20th, researchers at Yale University in the United States predicted based on the genetic relationship between the new coronavirus and other coronaviruses that the patient was infected with the new coronavirus for the first time. If you don’t take measures such as wearing masks and vaccinations, the risk of re-infection after 17 months is 50%.

  The study also warned that if the vaccine is not vaccinated, patients may be infected again within a few months.

Study co-author Jeffrey Townsend said: "The natural immunity is relatively short-lived, and people infected with the new crown should still be vaccinated."

  In order to assess the durability of immunity from infection with the new coronavirus, Townsend and colleagues wanted to understand how the level of antibodies produced by previous infections would affect re-infection.

Previous studies conducted by other scientists provided data that enabled the Townsend team to understand the long-term effects of the coronavirus that causes the common cold, but the new coronavirus still lacks relevant data.

  To fill this gap, the Townsend team combined genetic data from the new coronavirus, three common coronaviruses, and related severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses to construct a virus family tree , And then use this tree to simulate the evolution of virus characteristics over time.

These characteristics provide an estimate of the decline in antibody levels after the new coronavirus infection, as well as other factors related to the risk of reinfection.

The results showed that the risk of reinfection increased from about 5% in 4 months after the initial infection to 50% in 17 months. All in all, the duration of natural protection from infection with the new coronavirus seems to be less than half of the three common cold coronaviruses. .

  Townsend pointed out that despite this, there are still many unknowns, including the severity of symptoms when the patient is re-infected, and the individual's susceptibility to re-infection.

  Sarah Bryant, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, did not participate in the study, but she pointed out that it may be too early to draw a definite conclusion about the decline in protection after infection with the new coronavirus, but science shows that this protection has a protective effect. It will indeed weaken: "No one would think that immunity will last a long time for a virus that has evolved specifically to escape immunity."

  Bryant also emphasized that the infected people need to be vaccinated to strengthen protection.

A study published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August also proved this point. The study found that some people who were infected with the new crown virus in 2020 were infected again in May or June 2021, and there were no people who were vaccinated during this period. The likelihood of re-infection is more than twice that of vaccinated people.