REINFECTION WARNING from the WHO.

“We are now getting reports of people getting reinfected with a new variant—from ( #B1351)—suggesting people who’ve had prior infection could get infected again.” says Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan. #COVID19

2) This comes on the heels of troubling data I highlighted last week from the placebo group of the Novavax trial that that people previously infected and have #COVID19 antibodies (seropositive) has no protection for #B1351 variant reinfection— not even for severe disease! https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1358065355785134083

3) Last month, South Africa’s CDC also warned about likelihood of reinfection risk because of the lower virus neutralization seen by the E484K mutation in the #B1351 variant. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1351686170044989442

4) Dr Fauci warned: “The data really are quite suggestive: The level of immunity that you get from natural infection — either the degree of immunity, the intensity of the immunity or the breadth of immunity — is obviously not enough to protect against infection with the mutant”

5) Fauci noted that a **vaccine is better than natural infection in protecting people**, calling it “a big, strong plug to get vaccinated”...

And reality check for people who may have assumed immunity because already been infected. (natural herd immunity advocates listen up!)

6) The good thing is that the Novavax vaccine was roughly equally ~50% effective (in South Africa , higher elsewhere) against the virus regardless of past infection (denoted as serostatus positive or negative in the figure). All the more reason to vaccinate.

7) And the Novavax vaccine is 60% effective among HIV negative regular population against #B1351! This is impetus to rely on vaccines!

8) to be clear—not every variant has a high reinfection risk. #B117 seems pretty responsive to pre existing antibodies (for most part) and vaccines so far held up well for B117. But #B1351 is different because it has the E484K mutation. This one has frequent antibody escape

9) Notably, South African scientists point out:

People who had recovered from #COVID19 from the 1st wave, “90% showed reduced immunity” to the new variant #B1351 (aka 501Y.V2)

in addition to 48% w/ “complete immune escape” (complete lack of any protection from prior)

10) And the bad news is that #B1351 has an outbreak in Central Europe, centered on Austria’s Tyrol region. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1359135923615719428

11) recently, S African scientists says they have identified 4000 suspected reinfections. This is what WHO is alluding to.

12) First documented published case of “severe reinfection” with the #B1351 variant from . Obviously countless more. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab129/6132402

13) recently, SA pulled approval for AstraZeneca vaccine in South Africa after not enough evidence it works for mild and moderate #B1351 infection. Severe still remains to be seen. But luckily J&J and Novavax still good against #B1351. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1358828202152624130

14) Here are vaccine and #B1351 & #B117 neutralization assays versus blood from people who got the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. we don’t have direct efficacy data yet from trials, so this is the best we got. Much worse for #B1351. #B117 semi okay. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.25.428137v2.full.pdf