Got COVID-19 again? What you need to know about reinfections
Toronto resident Leshae Moses has been infected with COVID-19 four times. The 22-year-old personal support worker says she was reinfected with the virus despite being fully vaccinated.
But she is not worried about catching it again. “I think I’ll be okay,” Moses said. Even as new COVID-19 cases in Canada are declining, the highly-transmissible Omicron variant is causing a high rate of reinfection among the Canadian population, experts say.
Another case in point: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tested positive for COVID-19 again on Monday, almost five months after catching the virus the first time around. “Many people have had two, three, four reinfections already,” said Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa. “It seems likely that if you’ve had it before, you’re going to get it again if you’re engaging in regular social behaviours,” he said.
Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious disease specialist and medical microbiologist at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), said both the virus and the human component are contributing to the risk of reinfection.
United States
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Cases: 46 252 513
Deaths: 750 423
Recovered: 0
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India
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Cases: 34 321 025
Deaths: 459 652
Recovered: 0
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Brazil
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Cases: 21 835 785
Deaths: 608 235
Recovered: 0
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United Kingdom
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Cases: 9 215 683
Deaths: 141 607
Recovered: 0
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Russia
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Cases: 8 494 589
Deaths: 237 619
Recovered: 0
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