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Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
That's a good way of explaining it in layman's terms. The only problem I can see though is that AFAIK they still aren't sure if people can catch it again after having had it once and recovered.
If they can, what next?
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You can’t catch the same virus again. If it mutates rapidly, you could catch a mutated form later, but that would technically not be the same virus. So far scientists have identified many dozens of mutated variations on the original infection but they are all essentially still the same virus. To give you some idea how far a coronavirus might have to mutate in order to become sufficiently different to cause reinfection, a Dutch laboratory has had some early success with a vaccine for SARS1, which killed around 7,000 people in 2002-2003. SARS1 and the present virus are both coronaviruses; the present one is also designated SARS2. So even though this one is sufficiently different to be a distinct virus, immunity against one does appear, at this stage, to confer immunity against the other.
In any case, the government’s present strategy would still protect against the coronavirus causing covid-19.
I also don’t believe at present there is any credible evidence that this virus exhibits rapid mutation leading to so-called re-infection. There are a couple of anecdotal reports but these are being pounced on by a global news media whose entire operation has now been given over to coronavirus coverage. They’re going to repeat anything anyone says about it, without necessarily assessing its credibility or assigning its proper significance first.