Second wave of Covid-19? Re-infections in Belgium and the Netherlands make experts wary

Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that the re-infected patient in the Netherlands was an old person with a weakened immune system.

Virologist Marion Koopmans, cited by the NOS, said that it was common for people to remain infected with the virus for a long time with mild symptoms. The infection flares up in some cases. Marion Koopmans said that genetic testing was required in both instances of infection to check whether there were any differences in the virus present.

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"Not good News"

Virologist Marc Van Ranst told Dutch media that antibodies developed by the Belgian patient were not strong enough to fend off slightly different variant of the virus.

"It's not good news," Ranst was quoted as saying by NOS.

It is not yet clear whether the cases were one-off or there was a danger of a large number of people getting re-infected after they recovered from Covid-19.

Situation in Hong Kong:

On Monday, a man in Hong Kong was found to have been reinfected by coronavirus after a trip to Spain. He was infected in March and caught the virus again after his trip in mid-August.

Experts are warning the public to not let the guard down after recovery from the infection as the cases mentioned above show that some people did not have lifelong immunity against coronavirus.

Some experts however see a silver-lining. They say that re-infections were a sign of 'residual immunity' in the patient.

So what about the vaccine?

There is an ongoing global race to create coronavirus vaccine. While concerns remain about reinfection adding another element to the fray, some scientists are not willing to take 'rare examples' as something that derails the process of making a coronavirus vaccine.