The COVID pandemic has been going on for well over two years now. During this time, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) has slowly mutated, allowing it to evade the immune system enough to infect people many times. (Also read: First case of human getting Covid from cat in Thailand: Report)
As so many of us have had COVID already, it’s no surprise that plenty of people are catching the virus for a second or even a third time. In the UK, this has been particularly noticeable since the emergence of the omicron variant from December 2021 onwards.
But when reinfected, are you likely to feel better or worse than you did the first time you had COVID? As well as being a question many people are curious about, this is an important issue from a public health perspective.
If symptoms are more severe, each time someone gets infected, we would expect the pandemic to escalate as people become sicker and sicker. A zero-COVID strategy would be the only way to avert waves of serious illness.