Health Patrol has carried out numerous reports on the possibility of reinfection and severe health risks associated with COVID-19.1Due to these health risks associated with COVID-19 and the fact that re-infection with COVID-19 is possible, you should take the vaccine irrespective of whether you already had COVID-19 infection.
At this time, experts do not know how long someone is protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19—which is also because the immunity someone gains from having an infection, called natural immunity, varies from person to person. Some early evidence suggests natural immunity may not last very long. As the system learns to fight back the infection, it develops COVID antibodies. Right now, from what studies have shown, it has been suggested that antibodies may last anywhere between 3-6 months for a person, after which they can start to wane. Asymptomatic persons and those with milder cases of infection are thought to have lower immunity than others.
A recently discussed publication in this regard has been the one by Harvey et al. that concluded that antibody positivity to SARS-CoV-2 is associated with a decreased risk of future infection. The study, currently unpublished, states that using real-world data from more than 3 million people, National Cancer Institute researchers have found that people who have had evidence of a prior infection with the deadly Coronavirus, appear to have some degree of protection against being reinfected with the virus.2
Another recent study3 published on January 06, 2021 in the journal Science, reports COVID-19 patients who recovered from the disease still have robust immunity from the coronavirus up to eight months after infection. The result is an encouraging sign that the study authors interpret to mean immunity to the virus probably lasts for many years, and it should alleviate fears that the COVID-19 vaccine would require repeated booster shots to protect against the disease and finally get the pandemic under control.
We still do not know how long immunity produced by vaccination lasts until we have more data on how well the vaccines work. Both natural immunity and vaccine-induced immunity are important aspects of COVID-19 that experts are trying to learn more about, and we at Health Patrol will keep you updated, as new evidence becomes available.
Source
1 https://healthpatrol.in/2020/10/22/is-there-a-possibility-of-reinfection-in-covid-patients/
2 Harvey RA, Rassen JA, Kabelac CA, et al. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.18.20248336
3 Dan JM, Mateus J, Kato Y, et al. Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection. Science 06 Jan 2021: eabf4063. DOI: 10.1126/science.abf4063