According to recently published data from experts at the Dornsife School of Public Health, closing indoor dining during the first two waves of the COVID pandemic was associated with a 61% decline in new COVID-19 cases over a six-week span, preventing an estimated 142 daily cases per city, compared with cities that reopened indoor dining during that period. The team looked at data from March to October 2020 in 11 U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, Atlanta and Dallas. The results were published last month in the journal Epidemiology.
At first researchers believed that recovering from COVID-19 meant the chances of getting the virus again so soon were low. Scientists thought we were protected for at least six months after the initial infection. This as it turns out is not true. You can be er-infected much sooner. The much raster re-infections are due to relaxed safety precautions such as masking and social distancing, as well as declining antibody levels and additional viral mutations, which can result in immune escape by omicron sub-variants.
Re-infections are common. The antibodies you generate in the face of one infection don’t necessarily protect you against other sub-variants for long.