A man in Hong Kong is the first confirmed case of coronavirus reinfection
A 33-year-old man in Hong Kong was infected with the coronavirus a second time, more than four months after his initial infection, researchers report. His case is the first confirmed account of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection. The fact that some people can be reinfected with the virus is “not a huge shock,” says Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at the Rockefeller University in New York City and with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. People often get reinfected with the coronaviruses that cause the common cold. And some people may not mount a strong enough immune response to fight off SARS-CoV-2 a second time. “The key unknowns at the moment are how often this occurs and to what extent,” Bieniasz says. If reinfections are relatively common, it could make reaching herd immunity — the proportion of the population that has to be immune to protect other people — through natural infections more difficult (SN: 3/24/20). Vaccines, however,...