by Sara Berg – Senior News Writer for the American Medical Association

“You can’t assume that every microorganism is going to give immediate lifelong immunity. People can get reinfected,” said Dr. Grody. “It works for some diseases like hepatitis B, but that doesn’t seem to be working that well for COVID-19.”

“There’s certainly antibodies to the virus, which can be detected in the lab, but they—at least as far as we can tell—don’t necessarily kill the virus or inactivate it,” he said. “That’s why you can get reinfection. The antibodies that are naturally produced by the body may not be uniformly fatal (“neutralizing”) to the virus.”

“Even if they are, they may not last long enough,” said Dr. Grody. “Some studies have shown within weeks the levels are way down and that’s not good for either herd immunity or a vaccine.”

American Medical Association – October 21, 2020