Vaccines smart, immune system smarter. When it comes to Covid-19 infection, your immune system will protect you longer, even against some of the new variants that are starting to appear.
Researchers agree that our immune system ‘remembers’ the SARS-Cov-2 virus, responsible for Covid-19, for at least six months, and likely much longer.
But it does more than that. Following an infection, the immune system continues to produce antibodies that improves the response to the virus and any variants, say researchers at Rockefeller University. So, if you do encounter the virus again, you’re unlikely to be re-infected.
Although our antibodies naturally decline after the infection has passed, our memory B cells actually increase, and keep evolving to mount a better challenge next time and even fight off some of the new variants.
The researchers were surprised that the B cells carried on mutating, and the antibodies they produce were more effective against the SARS virus. Although the process is common in chronic infections, such as HIV or herpes where the virus lingers in the body, the same was being seen against the Covid virus as well.
(Source: Nature, 2021; doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03207-w)
