On Oct. 19, 2021, National Science Foundation funded scientists at the Yale School of Public Health and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte reported that strong protection following natural infection from COVID-19 was short-lived.

Reinfections can and will happened even shortly after recovery and become increasingly common as immunity wanes and new SARS-CoV-2 variants arise. The study, published in the journal The Lancet Microbe,ﾠwas the first to determine the likelihood of reinfection following natural infection and without vaccination.