Thread by @ID_ethics

Article title: coronavirus immunity is "short-lasting"

Article figure: median time to re-infection ~ 2.5 years

(Median = black vertical line below)

Most people would be happy with >2 years to reinfection, especially with reduced clinical severity...

nature.com/articles/s4159…

The above is an example of how scientists and journal editors could better communicate findings and risks

The widespread and baseless fears that there would not be immunity to #covid19 could have been reduced, rather than increased, by more careful reporting of the same data

From the same study:

~50% of people infected with endemic coronaviruses still have higher levels of antibodies after 4 years

No reason to think that #covid19 would be wildly different

(antibodies don't necessarily = clinical protection, but still good data)

So it is absolutely no surprise that for #covid19 we find:

"About 95% of subjects retained immune memory at ~6 months after infection."

This is what we would expect for a novel coronavirus that behaves like other more familiar coronaviruses

science.sciencemag.org/content/371/65…

While we are on the coronavirus family, similar results regarding antibody duration for SARS:

Average > 2 years duration of antibody response

Obviously a more severe disease than #covid19, but reassuring to see lasting anti-coronavirus immune responses

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…