- Anthony Fauci, one of the top US experts on infectious disease, is the face of America’s coronavirus response team.
- Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah asked Fauci whether people who are infected with COVID-19 and recover from the disease are immune to reinfection in an interview Thursday.
- Fauci responded that, while experts can’t be 100% sure, he feels “really confident” that recovered coronavirus patients will have immunity.
- He added that he’d be “willing to bet anything that people who recover are really protected against re-infection.”
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the top US experts on infectious disease who guided the US through the AIDS, Zika, and Ebola epidemics, shared an optimistic message this week as he leads the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
During a recent interview with Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah, Dr. Fauci was asked whether people who are infected with COVID-19 and recover from the disease are immune to reinfection. Scientists are still working to answer this question, which could play a crucial role in decisions about whether to let people who have recovered out of the lockdown.
What COVID-19 symptoms look like, day by day
After being exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19, it can take as few as two and as many as 14 days for symptoms to develop. Cases range from mild to critical. The average timeline from the first symptom to recovery is about 17 days, but some cases are fatal. Here’s what it looks like to develop COVID-19, day by day.
Fauci, who has often appeared at odds with the White House’s more positive messaging around the pandemic, told Noah that, while experts can’t be 100% sure yet, he feels “really confident” that recovered coronavirus patients will have immunity.
He added that he’d be “willing to bet anything that people who recover are really protected against re-infection
Immunity to the coronavirus
While there are still many unknowns about the coronavirus, Noah’s question to Fauci is among the most important lingering mysteries about the virus that has spread to at least 177 countries and infected more than 615,000 people.
One of the reasons the illness has spread so quickly is because it’s a new virus our bodies have not encountered before — so we have no built-in immunity. The immune system has to develop antibodies — proteins that fight a specific antigen — before we become protected.
Generally, once your body has antibodies that can fight off a particular virus, you can’t get sick from it again. That’s why someone who had chickenpox or got the vaccine won’t get the disease twice.
Fauci told Noah that “if this virus acts like every other virus that we know, once you get infected, get better, clear the virus, then you’ll have immunity that will protect you against re-infection.”
So far, the number of recovered coronavirus patients — 135,700 — is about one-fifth the number of infected.
Business Insider
