The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued updated guidance suggesting that immunity to COVID-19 may last three months.
The updated guidance states, “People who have tested positive for COVID-19 do not need to quarantine or get tested again for up to three months as long as they do not develop symptoms again.” It’s the first acknowledgment from the agency that infected people may gain immunity for a period of time.
It is unclear what the CDC based that recommendation on. Only two studies have examined the duration of immunity for people who have recovered from a coronavirus infection. One study, published in Nature Medicine, examined 37 asymptomatic and 37 symptomatic patients in China and found that “antibodies in a high proportion of individuals who recovered from [the coronavirus] infection start to decrease within 2–3 months after infection.”
Another study that examined eight patients who were convalescing found that the antibodies found in four of the patients declined six to seven weeks after they were infected.
The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
