If you have been ill due to corona, you are then protected against new infection. However? Unfortunately, that is not always the case. The latest Dutch figures show that 13 percent of people who are now infected with omikron had corona before.
It OMT advice of January 24 show the latest figures. ‘The number of people with a reinfection – people who become infected again 2 months or more after the previous infection – was comparable last calendar week to the week before (12% vs. 13%), but more than four times higher than in the period in which the delta variant dominated.’ So it’s best to get corona again. That chance is greater than when the delta variant was still circulating in the Netherlands.
The British Guardian shows that in Great Britain no less than two-thirds of people with omikron have had corona before. The Belgian newspaper De Standaard quotes a Danish expert, who suspects it is due to a new version of the omikron variant. Instead of BA.1, there is now BA.2 which would make you sick again. Van Dissel indicated that BA.2 has now also been seen in the Netherlands.
Vaccination
The figures build on the preliminary results that Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London showed before Christmas. If you’ve had omikron, you’re only 19 percent protected against another infection. Vaccination also protects much less against omikron than against delta. In four months after vaccination, the protection drops to almost 0. A booster boosts this again to 55 to 80 percent.
Fewer hospital admissions
Fortunately, there is also good news to report, because omikron really makes less sick than delta. The OMT advice shows that. Hospital admissions due to Covid are still declining, although the decline is currently leveling off. The OMT will soon show how effective the vaccines are against infection and hospitalization by specifically the omikron variant in the Netherlands. The Medicines Evaluation Board already reported on its website, after analysis by the European EMA, that vaccination helps against serious illness and hospitalization.
Infection or vaccination?
The question remains, which protects better: an infection or vaccination? Scientists are not yet able to properly answer this question, show the Volkskrant. One study points to more re-infection in cured people, the other more in vaccinated people. Especially if a new variant shows up, a previous infection seems to be better. After all, you have built up an immune system against the entire virus, and not just the pieces of the protuberance protein that have been incorporated into the vaccine. But whether that really works, you have to demonstrate with figures among large groups of people, and we haven’t got that far yet.
