Spanish healthcare worker gets Covid twice in just 20 days

A healthcare worker tested positive for Covid twice within just 20 days in what researchers believe is the quickest reinfection since the outbreak began.

The unnamed woman from Spain, 31, became infected with the Delta variant in December 2021 – days after she received her booster vaccine – before then catching the Omicron variant.

This means even vaccinated people who have had the virus “cannot assume they are protected against reinfection”, researchers say.

Her first positive result came through routine healthcare testing, but she had no symptoms and went into isolation for 10 days.

Just days after returning to work in January she began to show symptoms – a cough and fever as well as feeling generally unwell – and took a test that yielded a positive result.

Her case, which is being presented to the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Portugal, is believed to be the shortest known gap between infections.

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Dr Gemma Recio, of the Institut Catala de la Salut in Spain, one of the study’s authors, said: “This case highlights the potential of the Omicron variant to evade the previous immunity acquired either from a natural infection with other variants or from vaccines.

“In other words, people who have had Covid-19 cannot assume they are protected against reinfection, even if they have been fully vaccinated.

“Nevertheless, both previous infection with other variants and vaccination do seem to partially protect against severe disease and hospitalisation in those with Omicron.

“This case also underscores the need to carry out genomic surveillance of viruses in infections in those who are fully vaccinated and in reinfections."

She added: “Such monitoring will help detect variants with the ability to partially evade the immune response.”

Reinfections are the second or subsequent Covid-19 infections.

Work by the Office for National Statistics suggests the risk of reinfection is 10 times higher with the Omicron variant compared with the Delta variant.

Omicron is now the dominant variant in most of the world.