If Youre Sick Can You Get Yourself Sick Again
MIT Medical answers your COVID-19 questions. Got a question about COVID-xix? Transport it to united states at CovidQ@mit.edu , and nosotros'll practise our best to provide an answer.
Ten days agone, I tested positive for COVID-nineteen after symptoms that began two days before. My husband's symptoms started a few days after that, and he as well tested positive. Now, v days later, he's feeling a lot better — just a little drawn — and was planning to go dorsum to piece of work tomorrow. Merely just this forenoon, our teenage son tells me that he has a bad headache and scratchy pharynx, so I have no doubt he has information technology equally well. Our 12-year-old daughter doesn't have any symptoms yet, but I effigy information technology's only a thing of fourth dimension.
So, I'm completely recovered and living with one person who is by and large recovered, but nosotros're living with someone else who just got sick and another who probably will. Can one of them reinfect me? Tin they reinfect each other? Is information technology possible that we could continue passing information technology dorsum and along and stop up in a never-catastrophe household quarantine?
As the more transmissible Omicron variant sweeps through households, including vaccinated households, we've been getting questions like this one more frequently.
Fortunately for y'all and others dealing with multiple infections in the same household, the answer to all of your questions is "no." You and your husband are free to stop your self-isolation at present, according to CDC guidelines. You don't have to worry nearly carrying the virus to people outside of your household, considering you lot can't transmit the virus unless you lot are actively infected. And since you and your family unit members were almost certainly infected with the aforementioned strain of the virus, you lot won't pass information technology around once again.
In this way, COVID-19 is like the common cold, which is also a coronavirus. When you get a cold, your body manufactures antibodies to fight off the virus. And with those antibodies on full warning, you're protected from reinfection for some period of time. And so even if someone in your household catches your common cold a few days afterwards, then another family member starts sneezing a few days after that, they won't make you lot sick again. You'll go along getting better, while the cold virus runs its course in your unlucky, sniffling family members.
Just while yous won't pass COVID-19 back and forth within your household now, at that place is no guarantee that you won't be reinfected at some betoken in the future. When it comes to the mutual common cold, research shows that people can catch the same common cold virus within 12 months. We don't know the level of amnesty a person will have afterwards recovering from infection with the Omicron variant or how long it might last. In that location'southward evidence that Omicron is more 5 times more likely than earlier variants to reinfect people who had recovered from a previous COVID-19 illness. While a recent Due south African study appears to show that infection with Omicron greatly increases immunity against the earlier variant, Delta, there's no guarantee that a future variant won't have some power to evade whatsoever immunity your family has gained with your contempo infections.
And then, the good news is that, in the brusque run, you lot won't keep ping-ponging your current affliction back and along across your household. Merely once you've all recovered, y'all should continue to take the usual precautions. Of course, the best thing you tin do to protect yourselves is to brand sure you are up to appointment on your COVID vaccinations. In that location'south testify that vaccination after recovery from natural infection may exist much more protective against future infection than either vaccination or infection alone. Then, get vaccinated, if you lot haven't already, and go a booster when you're eligible (five months subsequently your 2nd mRNA vaccine or ii months after your first J&J). In the concurrently, take care of each other, and we hope y'all all become well presently!
This news story has non been updated since the engagement shown. Information contained in this story may be outdated. For current data nearly MIT Medical'south services, please come across relevant areas of the MIT Medical website.
Source: https://medical.mit.edu/covid-19-updates/2022/01/tag-youre-sick
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