Abstract
Background The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19 disease, has resulted in a global pandemic. Since its emergence in December 2019, the virus has infected millions of people, caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands and resulted in incalculable social and economic damage. Understanding the infectivity and transmission dynamics of the virus is essential for understanding how best to reduce mortality whilst ensuring minimal social restrictions to the lives of the general population. Anecdotal evidence is available, but detailed studies have not yet revealed whether infection with the virus results in immunity.
Objective The objective of the study was to use mathematical modelling to investigate the reinfection frequency of COVID-19.
Methods We have used the SIR (Susceptible, Infected, Recovered) framework and random processing based on empirical SARS-CoV-2 infection and fatality data from different regions to calculate the number of reinfections that would be expected to occur if no immunity to the disease occurred.
Results Our model predicts that cases of reinfection should have been observed by now if primary SARS-CoV-2 infection did not protect from subsequent exposure in the short term, however, no such cases have been documented.
Conclusions This work concludes that infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus provides short-term immunity to reinfection and therefore provides a useful insight for serological testing strategies, lockdown easing and vaccine design.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship DKR00620 and Research Grant for Research Fellows RGF\R1\180054 (to N.C.R.)
Author Declarations
I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.
Yes
The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:
N/A
All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.
Yes
I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).
Yes
I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.
Yes
Footnotes
Updated to include an incubation period for the virus and include a delay when recovery data was used.
Data Availability
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-country-by-country, reference number 19; https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page, reference number 22; https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/aktuelle-ausbrueche-epidemien/novel-cov/situation-schweiz-und-international.html#-1199962081, reference number 23, and https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/coronavirus-recovered, reference number 24.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-country-by-country