Are You Truly Protected for up to 3 Months Against COVID-19 After Recovery?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently updated its quarantine guidelines online. It centered on whether people who have recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) do not need to quarantine or be tested again for up to three months.
How long are the recovered patients remained protected against COVID-19? Is re-infection possible? These are just two of the questions that puzzle recovered COVID-19 patients, including those who tested positive for the virus.
The answers to these questions are very important because these will help everyone know the impact of the virus even during the recovery period.
In its quarantine guidelines updated last week, the CDC said those who recovered from coronavirus do not need to be tested again after three months.
However, the agency clarified on Friday through CNN News that it does not mean that recovered COVID-19 patients are already immune to the virus as recovered patients could still develop symptoms and could be reinfected again.
The CDC stated: "People who have tested positive for COVID-19 do not need to quarantine or get tested again for up to 3 months as long as they do not develop symptoms again."
The spokesperson of the agency noted that the guidance was based on the new study about the coronavirus.
In a recent published article, it said people can continue to test positive for the virus for up to three months after diagnosis. The good thing is, it is no longer infectious to other people, but symptoms should not be disregarded.
"The latest data simply suggests that retesting someone in the 3 months following initial infection is not necessary unless that person is exhibiting the symptoms of COVID-19 and the symptoms cannot be associated with another illness," the CDC said.
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, believed that antibodies correlate with protection. But Schaffner, who was not involved in the creation of the CDC guidance, said this was not yet proven.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta noted that few recent studies showed that antibodies to this particular coronavirus could fade away pretty quickly, especially in people with mild cases of COVID-19.
A pre-print of the study in July was released, and they found out that antibody responses tend to decline between 20 to 30 days. Researchers wrote that "this study has important implications when considering protection against re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the durability of vaccine protection."
Another study was also published in early July in Spain. The study showed that five percent of people in Spain have COVID-19 antibodies. However, they also found out that their immunity against the virus only lasts for weeks.
Their study also showed that 95 percent of Spain's population remains susceptible to the virus. It simply means that any perceived immunity can disappear.