Should you take the vaccine if you had COVID earlier

Given that everyone - young or old - are susceptible to the deadly coronavirus, it is important that each and every person, falling under the eligibility criteria must get themselves vaccinated. While you may not feel the need to get vaccinated considering you are young and have no pre-existing comorbidities, however, it is crucial that we protect the most vulnerable in our community and that can only be achieved through mass-vaccination. Many are still brimming with the confusion of whether or not they can take the COVID vaccine if they have had the coronavirus infection before.

According to a recent study published in medical journal The Lancet, it is extremely important that people who have already contracted the virus once in the past must get themselves vaccinated in any case. The study looked at the data of around 4 million people who had taken multiple COVID tests to see whether they were infected with the coronavirus and if they were then how susceptible were they to reinfection.

While 2 percent of over 530,000 people tested positive for the virus, 0.65 percent tested positive again later that year, compared to 3.3 percent of those who had tested negative during the first wave. That suggested that people who had already contracted the virus had 80% protection against reinfection. However, the protection rate dropped considerably down to 47 per cent for people over the age of 65.

The study, having found the high risk of reinfection in people over the age of 65, suggests that even if a person has contracted the virus in the past, it is still important to get themselves vaccinated, since their protection from their natural infection may not be sufficient on its own. According to the lead researcher Steen Ethelberg, “They need to take care, and shouldn’t believe that they are immune and still protect themselves." “It’s well known that coronavirus infections do not induce 100% immunity,” he adds.