Previous infection protected against Delta. That doesn't seem to be the case with Omicron, South African expert says

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Thu, 2021-12-02 15:32 — mike kraft

Previous infection protected against Delta. That doesn't seem to be the case with Omicron, expert says South Africa is seeing an increase in coronavirus reinfections in patients who contract the Omicron variant, Anne von Gottberg, a microbiologist from the country's National Institute for Communicable Diseases, said during a Thursday news briefing. By Rhea Mogul, Adam Renton, Sheena McKenzie & Ed Upright, CNN CNN

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"Previous infection used to protect against [the] Delta [coronavirus variant] but now with Omicron that doesn't seem to be the case," Gottberg told a WHO Africa briefing.
“We monitored these reinfection for the Beta [variant] and the for the Delta wave, and we didn’t see an increase in reinfections over and above what we expect when the force of infection changes, when the wave stops. However we are seeing an increase for Omicron,” Gottberg explained.

The data from South Africa, however, are showing that reinfections may be less severe, Gottberg added. “We believe, I think very much so, that the reinfections in our data, and hopefully from South Africa, that disease will be less severe," Gottberg said. ...

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