Reinfected Texas woman: ‘You’re absolutely not immune’
FORT WORTH — Meredith Mckee rushed to the hospital in June after taking her blood pressure at ACVS pharmacy and seeing it wasdangerously high. Theemergency room staff at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital admitted her but insisted on testing for COVID-19.
“I laughed at the teamand said I had already had it,” said Mckee, a 45-year-old Dallas resident. “There’s no way I could have COVID again.”
But the test proved her wrong. “I didn’t have any symptoms other than high blood pressure,” she said. “If it wasn’t for thesecond test, I would have never known.”
Mckee first was diagnosed with COVID-19 early this year after experiencing mild symptoms. She recoveredafter a fewweeks andlater tested positive for antibodies.
She stayed in her home since then, onlygoingoutside if it wasessential. But in late May, she felt it was safe to attend a couple of outdoor social events and a close friend’s birthday party.
“It was before the mask mandate, so no one was wearing masks,” Mckee said. “If I would have known there was a possibility for reinfection, I would have never gone.”
Confirmed reinfection cases are rare worldwide, and newresearch suggests immunity to the coronavirus could last years, but health experts say there’s not enough data to know how effective antibodies are at fighting COVID-19.
Armed with newantibodies, patients might think they no longer
have to take the same precautions or worry about reinfection, but that’s not the case, said Mark Pandori, director of the Nevada Public Health Laboratory.
“There’s no invulnerability or
immunity passport that comes with having been infected with this,” Pandori said. “You can’t assume you’re in the clear just because you’ve had it, because your own natural immunity may not last verylong tothis virus; wedon’t know that yet.”
Pandori was part of a team researching the case of a 25-year-old man from Reno who tested positive for COVID-19 in mid-april and recovered, but got sick again in late May with more severe symptoms.
This was the first confirmed reinfected patient in the U.S. and one of only three confirmed cases in the U.S. and 26 worldwide, according to an unofficial COVID-19 reinfection tracker published by BNO News.
Mckee said she worries about the people who have recovered from COVID-19 and think it’s OK to gather with family for the holidays because they can’t catch the virus or spread it anymore.
“Well, I’m here to tell you, ‘You’re absolutely not immune even if you’ve hadit,’ ” Mckee said.