This is concerning. My husband and I have both had covid-19 (not too serious for either, thank goodness). We thought a second infection was rare, but now I'm not so sure. I knew a guy from Hong Kong got it twice, and the second time was better, but that's all I'd read about it.

Apparently seeing a few rare anecdotal cases of reinfection and getting sicker the second time is not a huge cause for concern. But if immunity wears off after a year for most people, that will be a big deal in a few months.

One person getting reinfected doesn't seem terribly newsworthy, it's been settled science for a while now that this is possible, the question is what the rates of reinfection are (and, if we want to project into the future, how these compare longitudinally with previous coronaviruses).

Ha, beat me to this point by a few minutes.

Shouldn't we be getting good data on this relatively soon? People were getting sick in nyc 8 months ago. I'd be very surprised if the 8 month reinfection rate weren't highly predictive of the 12-24 month reinfection rate.

In the environment currently in USA#9 do you think people who have recovered from COVID19 are going to be less cautious about masks, etc. thus providing a higher probability of exposure?

In other words, the COVID19 recovered are more prone to catch it again, if they could. Seems like good news for short-term immunity at least since it's not happening that frequently.

I was sick at the end of February with the standard symptoms and had recently returned from LA, also daughters best friend babysat kids of family that came back from northern Italy in mid-February, were sick and later tested positive for antibodies. Best friend spends a lot of time at our house as her parents are batshit crazy.

I tested negative for antibodies at the end of June but regardless of whether I had it I'm still taking all of the standard precautions with masks, social distancing, etc.

If I tested positive for antibodies I would definitely feel more comfortable taking risks (#1 probably being traveling, especially to higher risk countries/areas of the US).

I would research whether people with antibodies can be a vector for others -- there may be research on this already for all I know. Also, would change behavior if it turns out reinfection rates are higher after all. But yeah, if you find out you have antibodies it seems illogical not to update your priors on risk tolerance. I'm getting another antibody test next week, doubt I'm positive but fingers crossed.

True. It's the only medical test where I was disappointed that I didn't test positive. It was almost four months after my possible exposure so I'm guessing if I had it the antibodies had already disappeared.

In any case I'm not changing my habits.

I was never a covid denier or anti-masker or anything like that, just of the mind that life must go on and we can't live in fear and isolation forever. But the pandemic finally hit home today.

My mom is in the hospital on oxygen and steroids for covid treatment. Nobody is allowed to go see her of course. She's pretty young but has asthma and diabetes so not a good combination. She works at a clinic so I always knew her catching it was more likely than not but I was hoping to run good and fade the deck. My dad has certainly been exposed and very likely infected as well although he's not sick yet. He's unfortunately not in much better shape and is a cancer survivor. I'm just writing this because I can't sleep and these thoughts keep running through my head.

Not sure if I can go to work tomorrow and mingle with a bunch of anti-maskers and conspiracy spouting morons.

Sorry to hear, man. I hope the best for them both.

deuce,

Best wishes to you and your parents.

Thanks for posting deuce. Hoping for the best. We all need a reminder at times to not take things for granted.

Good luck to your folks, deuce. Take care of yourself.

more from democracy now.

really not feeling optimistic about a vaccine

Those aren't vaccines, they're post infection therapies.

And vaccine trials get halted to check out weird results all the time. Sometimes, it's a death knell for the potential vaccine, but usually it turns out to be a coincidence or more rarely a very specific contraindication.

Given how many vaccines are in trial and the promising results so far, I am very optimistic that one or more of them will succeed. Not by election day, ldo, but maybe by year's end, and almost certainly by Spring. If it is one of the big bets, it might even be relatively widely distributed by then, though again, not universally that quickly.

I'm more concerned that the market will swoop down on the first vaccine showing any results at all and possibly shut out one or more that would be more effective.

At this point though it seems we could do worse than any port in a storm.

My husband was sick very sick in February (not hospitalized) -- they said it was covid-17. In Sept., he tested positive for antibodies and I tested negative. He had been sick with what he though was a sinus infection, but wasn't worried about covid. Two days later, I got sick and, and I tested positive for covid three days later. I assumed I got it from him. About two weeks later, he felt sick again, and he tested positive. His quarantine ended Saturday.

am getting tested again on Oct. 23 (surgery on Oct. 26, so test is mandatory). We do continue to wear masks, social distance, etc., although we've pretty much been self-quarantining for the past month+.

I think Bill Gates and some others are trying to make sure that doesn't happen. They're throwing money at tons of vaccines specifically to prevent the problem of drug companies not wanting to put a ton of effort into a drug that loses the sweepstakes. I doubt they'd pull funding until it's long certain there's an effective vaccine in mass production.

Nice moment of comic relief here yesterday. On October 14 (like most European countries we write it "14.10") the government announced there had been 1410 new cases.

Facebook memes say they just wrote the date in the wrong column.

Then shouldn't that be "14 October"?

Really it should be 14. októbra.

Is an októbra lingerie for an lady octopus?

No, but októbra is what you say for the genitive.

Why the period between 14 and októbra?

One of the dumbest things about USA is Month Day Year. Cmon.

If it's like other European languages, the period is like "th" in English. It makes 14 an ordinal number, fourteenth.