A new study found that coronavirus immunity for those who have been previously infected is still strong 8 months later.
Understanding how the immune system remembers the coronavirus is key to “improving diagnostics and vaccines, and for assessing the likely future course of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the study says.
Blood samples from almost 200 patients in the study published by the journal Science showed it was not only the antibodies that remembered the virus. Multiple parts of the immune system remembered, and this memory helps a patient fight the virus quickly if they contract COVID-19 again.
Coronavirus vaccines are reaching millions of people in the United States, but the number of cases continues to remain high in some areas of the country.
Ninety percent of patients in the study showed that their immunity to the virus was long-lasting and strong, though there are concerns about how this would apply to the new strand of the coronavirus that started in the United Kingdom and made its way to multiple states.
The authors of the study believe that this new strand will not go against the natural immunity created after contracting the virus because the new strand has not mutated enough to where the human body couldn’t recognize it.
The immune system attacks different parts of the virus when it enters the human body, the study says, and most of those parts have not been affected by the new mutation coming out of the United Kingdom.
Despite most seeming to have immunity that could last up to 8 months after contracting the virus, there are “different patterns of immune memory in different individuals,” according to the study.
Vaccines have been rolling out in states across the country and President-elect Joe Biden
Joe BidenCapitol Police officer dies following riots Rep. Joaquin Castro wants to prevent Federal government from ever naming buildings, property after Trump Tucker Carlson: Trump ‘recklessly encouraged’ Capitol rioters MORE has set a goal of administering 100 million doses in his first 100 days in office.