Australian epidemiologist uneasy at COVID world

Adelaide epidemiologist Adrian Esterman is uneasy at the fact that there is a post-COVID world, especially in a time of rising reinfections, and that the restrictions have eased and lockdowns have lifted.

The University of South Australia professor believes that the prevalence of the term reflects a creeping casualness in public attitudes, despite the fact that the term is often used loosely.

In South Australia, we're getting 2,500 cases a day, we're getting several deaths a day, we've got a lot of these thousands of people re-infected, and there are over 200 hospitalisations, Professor Esterman said.

We don't know yet. Since the start of the epidemic, the number of COVID cases has reached 8 million.

Even if people who have twice caught COVID comprise a very small portion of the total, the focus on infection is being supplemented by a growing focus on reinfection.

In South Australia, authorities have warned of a COVID wave linked to the BA. In proportional terms, reinfections are on the rise.

Professor Esterman said that people catching it within three or four weeks of recovery.

We don't have a good handle on reinfections. There are a lot of variables and variants involved in generalising about reinfection.

It depends on how different your original infection was from the next one that's around, Professor Esterman said.

Recent US research shows that the chance of negative health impacts increases with each infection, even though it has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Professor Esterman said there was another burning issue where reinfection was concerned.

Does it lead to an increased or decreased chance of getting long COVID? He said something.

Catherine Bennett, the Chair of Deakin University's epidemiology, is interested in the ramifications of the disease.

Professor Bennett said that more research was needed to make it more analytical. Our current understanding of reinfection might seem at least partly anecdotal.

Some people have had more severe infections on subsequent rounds. She said that 5 has a better ability to bind to proteins in our lung lining.

We're also seeing within Omicron that there is an ongoing risk of continual reinfection, so you might have a short period where your immune system is boosted, but then you get infected again.

Like Professor Esterman, Australian National University infectious diseases expert Peter Collignon suspects that the reinfection leads to much milder disease than the first episode you had, but said there were exceptions.

Professor Collignon said that all the available evidence shows that you're less likely to end up in hospital or die.

Does that mean you're protected from infection? Some people, with their second infection, have worse problems than the first, and it seems to be especially people who get it in the first two or three months after the first infection. Professor Collignon said that our understanding of reinfection remains incomplete at best.

He said there are a lot of questions that we need answers to.

We still don't understand immunity because we may get worse symptoms in the first month or two if you don't get rid of the virus or get it back before your body has time to learn properly. They say that vaccination is a good thing for reducing severe illness and they recommend steps to avoid infection if you can. It's not whether you have an infection now or later. It's whether you have one infection or many infections.