NSW Health is yet to make public the number of COVID-19 reinfections recorded,but some other states have already published their figures. Between late December last year and the end of March 2022,there were almost 10,000 known COVID-19 reinfections in Victoria. Twenty-eight reinfections have been recorded in the Northern Territory.
The federal government does not collect data on COVID-19 reinfections,nor do health authorities in Western Australia and Queensland.
“Reinfections will become the norm,but what we hope is repeat infections will be milder each time as natural immunity combined with vaccination generates strong protection,” James McCaw,an epidemiologist and mathematical biologist with the University of Melbourne,said.
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In New York,more than 218,500 cases of reinfection have been recorded – about 4 per cent of total cases. Data published by British health authorities at the end of March showed reinfection was 10 times more likely when Omicron was the dominant variant than during the Delta wave. To date,almost 1 million reinfections have been reported in Britain.
McCaw said that,based on overseas figures,it is likely that NSW has recorded tens of thousands of reinfections.
“We will get reinfected,and we are most likely to be reinfected by new versions of the virus,which are immunologically different,” McCaw said. “It’s going to happen more and more because it’s the only way for the virus to establish itself. It will be around forever because of reinfections.”
Alicia and Andy Jones with two-year-old son Miles.Credit:Kate Geraghty
Alicia and Andy Jones,along with their two children,Amelia and Miles,caught COVID-19 during the peak of last year’s Delta wave.
“I was really unwell with lots of brain fog,nausea,a cough and really bad fatigue,” she said. “Both kids were OK but the stress of being stuck inside – almost a month – took its toll.”
Months later,the virus struck again,but symptoms were milder. Alicia Jones and her daughter caught the virus a second time,as the Omicron’s BA.2 wave was sweeping through the state.
“I had a cough and a headache but by the fourth day was feeling better,” she said.
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McCaw emphasised that COVID-19 was now on the “path to endemicity”.
But he stressed Australia had experienced a very different version of the pandemic from other nations.
“Omicron was really our first exposure. In the rest of the world,almost everyone had[had COVID-19] once from another strain,” he said.
“Omicron’s intrinsic severity is still very severe – the reason we didn’t have a catastrophe is because of vaccines. Reinfections will become the norm but what we hope is reinfections will be less severe because our body has various aspects of the immune response.
“We will all get continual regular exposure over our lifetime,and we will get reinfected.”
However,the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants could potentially lead to different outcomes.
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NSW reported its first BA.4 case in its latest COVID-19 surveillance report,released on Thursday,in a person who had recently been in South Africa.
Wood said he expected NSW reinfections were being concentrated in unvaccinated individuals,with a significant proportion in children under 12 who have low levels of vaccination.
“If you’ve been vaccinated,with two doses,I expect you to still have pretty high immunity,” Wood noted.
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