| Topic: | Reinfection | |
| Posted by: | Andy Jones | |
| Date/Time: | 01/05/20 09:57:00 |
| Not sure I understand the criticism of the WHO. Their stance on the possibility of reinfection seems totally consistent with everyone I have spoken to about the issue. Most viruses provide some level of immunity from them once you have caught them but this can be variable. There isn't sufficient research on it at the moment and it would be a disaster if health services were to operate on the basis that staff who had had it could come back to work with no risk to them or their patients and then it emerged that there was no immunity. The latest word from South Korea seems encouraging in that they are now considering cases they had considered to be reinfections as relapses. It would be fantastic news if those infected did have a high level of immunity but the WHO has not made a mistake on being cautious about this. If any mistake has been made it was by the British government in their early belief in the use of herd immunity as a tool to tackle the outbreak. Thankfully the policy was ditched before too much damage was done. |