Can you catch coronavirus twice?
There are fears that it may be possible to catch the coronavirus more than once, after a woman in her 40s in Osaka, Japan, tested positive for COVID-19 for a second time at the end of February. Studies and research are still going on to determine if this may be the case. So far, we do not have a definitive conclusion. Before understanding whether or not the coronavirus can be caught twice, it is worth knowing how we build immunity to a virus in the first place. When a pathogen (a foreign infection such as a virus or bacteria) enters the body, the immune system first has to recognise it as alien. There are specific blood cells whose job it is to patrol the body and quickly send out an alert if a new infection is encountered. This alert stimulates the immune system to start producing very specific antibodies for the infection. This process takes time as a certain level of antibodies need to be produced to overcome the infection. During this time the virus or bacteria is multi...