Covid-19 has changed and so has our immunity. Here’s how to think about risk from the virus now

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Covid-19 was never just another cold. We knew it was going to stick around and keep changing to try to get the upper hand on our immune systems.

But we’ve changed, too. Our B cells and T cells, keepers of our immune memories, aren’t as blind to this virus as they were when we first encountered the novel coronavirus in 2020. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has screened blood samples and estimates that 97% of people in the US have some immunity to Covid-19 through vaccination, infection or both.

Then there’s science: We have updated vaccines and good antivirals to lean on when cases start to rise. Masks still work. Rapid tests are in stores. We now know to filter the air and to ventilate our spaces.

Those strategies, plus our hard-won immunity, had helped bring our national numbers of infections, hospitalizations and deaths down to levels that felt almost forgettable.

 

Almost.

Now that Covid-19 infections have started to rise again, it feels like people all over the country are testing positive, and it’s hard to know how to react. The government has been dialing back its response since the end of the public health emergency in May. Good Covid-19 data is hard to come by and harder to interpret.

So if people are less likely to be hospitalized or die from a Covid-19 infection now, has the danger passed? Is there still reason to worry if you do catch the infection for a second, third or fourth time?

Experts say it’s less risky to catch Covid-19 than it used to be, but there are still good reasons not to treat it casually.

“At this point, the risk is lower because of our prior immunity, whether for severe outcomes or for long Covid,” said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and dean of the Yale School of Public Health.

“Covid is still more dangerous than the flu, but its level of danger is becoming less,” she said, noting that we’re still very early in our human experience with the coronavirus, even four years in, and there are still things we don’t know.

 

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