Omicron surge raises COVID-19 reinfection concern

UK: With Omicron spreading across the world faster than any previous variant, cases of reinfection among people who caught COVID-19 earlier in the pandemic are rising.

Professor Neil Ferguson, Epidemiologist at Imperial College London, estimated last week that between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of Omicron cases were among people who had already been infected with another variant.

Other scientists have called this a plausible estimate. Almost all reinfections so far will have been of people who originally caught another strain of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. No evidence has yet been found of anyone being infected twice by Omicron itself, including from South Africa where this latest variant of concern has been circulating longest – for at least two months.

But health officials worry that Omicron’s increased transmissibility and ability to evade immunity protection will lead to cases of reinfection with the same variant. They are also concerned about co-infection – simultaneous infection with Omicron and another variant – in this phase of the pandemic.

Trinity College Dublin’s Professor of Experimental Immunology Kingston Mills said it was too early for people infected with Omicron to have cleared the virus and then caught it again.

Various studies have shown that a first infection with Sars-Cov-2 provides good immune protection against illness if you are reinfected with another strain of the virus such as Omicron. Indeed, evidence including an Imperial College study published on Monday shows that other coronaviruses, which cause common colds, afford some protection.

– THE STRAITS TIMES