Researchers at McMaster University have found that rather than conferring immunity against future infections, infection during the first Omicron wave of COVID left the seniors they studied much more vulnerable to reinfection during the second Omicron wave.
The surprising finding from a study of 750 vaccinated seniors in Ontario retirement homes and long-term care settings suggests the we don't understand how some Omicron variants can evade the immune system, according to Dawn Bowdish, an immunologist who holds the Canada Research Chair in Aging & Immunity.
Senior co-author Andrew Costa, an epidemiologist and associate professor in McMaster's Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, says the findings should serve as a warning that we don't know how previous infections will impact susceptibility to the variants which are now in circulation.
Though the researchers were not able to identify which Omicron variant a person had, all the initial infections occurred during the BA.1/BA.2 wave, and all the reinfections occurred during the summer of 2022 when the BA.5 variant was responsible for the vast majority of infections.
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