Coronavirus protective immunity is short-lasting
Preprint
- 18 May 2020
- preprint
- other
- Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Abstract
In the current COVID-19 pandemic a key unsolved question is the duration of acquired immunity in recovered individuals. The recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 precludes a direct study on this virus, but the four seasonal human coronaviruses may reveal common characteristics applicable to all human coronaviruses. We monitored healthy subjects over a time span of 35 years (1985-2020), providing a total of 2473 follow up person-months, and determined a) the time to reinfection by the same seasonal coronavirus and b) the dynamics of coronavirus antibody depletion post-infection. An alarmingly short duration of protective immunity to coronaviruses was found. Reinfections occurred frequently at 12 months post-infection and there was for each virus a substantial reduction in antibody levels as soon as 6 months post-infection.Keywords
Other Versions
- Published version: Version Nature Medicine, 26, preprints
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