People who recovered from COVID-19 still had protection a year later, according to a new study.
Recovery from COVID-19 often grants a form of protection known as natural immunity.
Studies have consistently shown that severe COVID-19 induces natural immunity, but researchers in the Netherlands sought to see if people who did not require hospital care still experienced the protection.
They detected COVID-19 antibodies, or signs of a past infection, among 95 participants out of 497. About 70 percent had high levels of antibodies. Out of that subset, all but one remained “strongly seropositive” at all follow-up visits, which lasted up to one year.
Low rates of antibody decay were found, “suggesting long-term natural immunity,” Dymphie Mioch, a health researcher in the Netherlands and one of the researchers who carried out the study in the province of North Brabant, wrote with colleagues in the paper….