health-care worker was infected with covid twice in 20 days
a 31-year-old contracted both delta and omicron in just 20 days in a case that marks a grim new record.
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a woman in spain caught two different strains of sars-cov-2. first delta, then omicron. getty
a healthcare worker in spain contracted covid twice in just 20 days, a grim new record in the spread of the virus. the worker in question, a 31-year-old woman, was fully vaccinated and had received a booster, according to cnbc news. she first tested positive on a pcr test on dec. 20, 2021, during a routine work screening. she had no symptoms, but isolated for ten days, as was routine.
just 20 days after her first positive test, on jan. 10, 2022, the woman tested positive on another pcr test. this time she had several covid symptoms, including a fever and cough.
she had not one, but two variants
when genome sequencing was performed on her positive tests, analysts determined that she had caught two different strains of sars-cov-2, the virus that causes covid: first delta, then omicron.
the spanish woman’s case will be presented this weekend at european congress of clinical microbiology and infectious diseases, which starts in lisbon, portugal on april 23. (the study about her situation has been peer-reviewed, but it hasn’t yet been submitted to a medical journal for publication.)
dr. gemma recio of the institut catala de salut, tarragona in spain, the study’s co-author, presenting the case, told bbc news that the situation makes it clear that omicron can “evade the previous immunity acquired either from a natural infection with other variants or from vaccines.”
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“in other words, people who have had covid-19 cannot assume they are protected against reinfection, even if they have been fully vaccinated,” she said. “nevertheless, both previous infection with other variants and vaccination do seem to partially protect against severe disease and hospitalization in those with omicron.”
catching covid twice was fairly unusual until the emergence of omicron, a highly contagious variant that spread quickly towards the end of 2021. not all provinces have released information about how many people have been re-infected, and case-tracking has been inconsistent. authorities in ontario, though, said almost 12,000 people have gotten covid twice between november 2020 and april 2022. in quebec, meanwhile, that number is close to 9,000, according to the canadian press.
omicron, in particular, doesn’t appear to boost immunity in a significant way, ctv news has reported — and its rapid spread is in part due to its ability to avoid the immune system.
the spanish woman’s case “is not particularly surprising, though the gap between infections is particularly short,” professor paul hunter, who teaches medicine at the university of east anglia, told the guardian. “we have known for some months that reinfections will occur. the omicron variant with its escape mutations has made reinfections even more likely.”
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one ontario woman who got covid three times described her situation to ctv news as “exhausting.”
“it put strain on my husband, who works full-time and is our sole provider,” she told ctv. “not only does he have to work long hours, but he had to take on additional work at home, caring for the family, grocery shopping, meal prepping, and getting our younger one to and from his extracurriculars, school and sports, which resulted in him having to miss work on occasion.”
maija kappler is a reporter and editor at healthing. you can reach her at mkappler@postmedia.com
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