WHO deletes tweet that suggested that people would not gain immunity after a Coronavirus infection.

Yahoo News/Getty.

The World Health Organization has deleted a tweet that suggested that people would not gain immunity after a Coronavirus infection. Yahoo News. The tweet said “there is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection”. The tweet caused outrage and the World Health Organization was accused of fear-mongering. Today the WHO tweeted out that they expected people who recovered from the disease to have some level of protection from the virus, though it's unclear how long the protection will last and how effective it will be. The original tweet was about the proposed "immunity passports" which would allow people to go back to work regardless of the social distancing policies in several countries. 

Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on "immunity passports". The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify:

We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection. pic.twitter.com/AmxvQQLTjM

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 25, 2020

My Comment:
These days I trust very little coming out of the World Health Organization.  They have proven themselves to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for China and have ignored good medical advice, like mandating facemasks, for months now. I generally ignore what they say and listen to the CDC instead. Even though they have been far from perfect as well, at least they aren't putting out crap like this.

This tweet is just the latest example of the WHO posting things that have very little basis in reality. The idea that people infected with Coronavirus don't get immunity after they survive the infection is foolish at best. If people didn't develop some immunity than nobody would have ever gotten better. I fully expect people will be immune to the virus for some time after they recover.

I do think it's valid to question how long that immunity will last. In some viruses immunity lasts forever and for others it only lasts years or months. It's unclear how long the immunity will be for the Coronavirus though regardless, it's obvious that it will exist. My guess is that if you get the virus you will be immune to in for at least a few years and if you do contract it afterwards you will be more resistant, assuming no other changes in your health.

Another factor is the fact that the virus will evolve over time. Though the Coronavirus has been fairly stable, it is changing over time. It's possible that the virus will mutate enough that people's immunity won't work anymore. Though people will probably be more resistant to newer strains if they have been infected previously, it might not stop people from getting sick. Still, the virus has been fairly stable and doesn't seem to be mutating as fast as we would expect.

I know there have been reports of people getting reinfected in Asia, but I find those studies to be dubious at best. The obvious cofounders are bad testing with false negatives and positives. People failing to fully recover to the virus and the virus getting a 2nd wind is likely as well. I think that those studies are wrong and obviously so as China hasn't seen a major 2nd wave in Wuhan.

All that being said, I do think that immunity passports are a dumb idea. Not because I don't expect there to be immunity to the virus, but because it would create two classes of people. With only recovered people allowed to live normal lives you would create a huge incentive for people to infect themselves just so they could go outside again. It could also cause a major amount of resentment from those people who have not gotten sick. It's a bad idea and I think that the WHO was right to speak out about it, but they did it for extremely stupid reasons.