Three generations, (from left to right) grandmother Genoveva Calloway, daughter Petra Gonzales, and granddaughter Vanesa Quintero, live next door to each other in San Pablo, Calif. Recently their extended family was hit with a second wave of COVID infections a year after the first. Beth LaBerge/KQED hide caption
Three generations, (from left to right) grandmother Genoveva Calloway, daughter Petra Gonzales, and granddaughter Vanesa Quintero, live next door to each other in San Pablo, Calif. Recently their extended family was hit with a second wave of COVID infections a year after the first.
On a Friday afternoon in early October this year, 8-year-old Maricia Redondo came home from her third grade class in the San Francisco Bay Area with puffy eyes, a runny nose and a cough.
"On Saturday morning we both got tested," says Vanessa Quintero, Maricia's 31-year-old mother. "Our results came back Monday that we were both positive."
Vanessa stared at her phone in shock and called her doctor's test-result hotline again, in disbelief. "This is wrong," she thought. "I hung up and dialed again. It's positive. This is wrong. I hung up again. And then I did it again!"
She was freaking out for two reasons. First, her large, extended family had already fought a harrowing battle against COVID-19 last year in the fall of 2020. The virus had traveled fast and furious through their working class neighborhood back then, in the East Bay city of San Pablo. Four generations of Vanessa's family live next door to each other in three different houses there, all connected by a backyard.
Vanessa was also terrified because she couldn't fathom another round of treatment against a more dangerous variant than she'd faced before. The pandemic has disproportionately struck Latino families across the United States, and delta is currently the predominant variant in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's twice as contagious and may cause more severe illnesses than previous variants in unvaccinated people.
The family's bad luck was uncanny. Research suggests immunity against a natural infection lasts about a year. And here it was almost exactly the same time of year and the family was fighting COVID-19 again.
"Reinfection is a thing," says Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a specialist in infections diseases and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "It probably manifests itself more when the variant in town looks different enough from the previous variants. Or enough time has elapsed since you first got it, [and] immunity has waned." He says a second infection is still not common, but doctors are starting to see more cases.
Computer models in a recent study suggest that people who have been infected by the virus can expect a reinfection within a year or two if they do not wear a mask or receive a vaccination. The findings show that the risk of a second bout rises over time. A person has a 5% chance of catching the virus four months after an initial infection, but a 50% chance 17 months later.
"The second time it was scarier because I'm vaccinated," says Vanessa referring to the family's second bout with the virus in October 2021. "Her dad's vaccinated. We're protected in that sense, but she's [Maricia] not."
Her 8-year-old daughter was still too young to qualify for a vaccine. This fall the little girl lay in bed wheezing. Vanessa tripled down on Maricia's asthma medication and the parents quarantined themselves inside, too. Vanessa shuddered at the prospect of telling her mother and grandma about a second round of positive test results.
During a 2020 family gathering on Halloween, Maricia complained she wasn't feeling good. Over the next few days Vanessa, and Vanessa's partner, mother, two cousins, two aunts, an uncle and two grandmothers all tested positive for COVID-19. Eventually at least 13 family members caught the virus at that time and several got quite sick.
Multiple family members had to be rushed to the hospital.
Vanessa, who, like her 8-year-old daughter Maricia, suffers from asthma, was the first person to need that emergency care. "I was on the floor," Vanessa remembers. "I couldn't even say 'I'm hungry' without coughing."
Then Vanessa's 51-year-old mother, Petra Gonzales, almost blacked out.
"I got a really high fever," says Petra. "There were times when I'd fall asleep and I was OK if I didn't wake up."
In last year's COVID bout, Petra landed in the ER with severe dehydration. Soon she heard that her 71-year-old mother, Genoveva Calloway, needed hospital care for dangerously low oxygen levels and was being treated at another hospital across town.
Unlike Petra and Vanessa, who were not admitted for an extended stay at the hospital in 2020, and slowly recovered at home, Genoveva's condition was critical. She spent day after day under close supervision from doctors and nurses.
"It was really painful not to be able to help my family, because we always help each other," says Genoveva, as her voice cracked with emotion. "We are always there for each other. It was so horrible."
Finally, after nearly two weeks in the hospital, Genoveva was discharged. She was still connected to an oxygen machine as nurses shuffled her out. When Genoveva and Petra greeted each other on the street, they embraced fiercely.
"She hugged me so tight," says Genoveva. "I'll never forget that. We missed each other so much."
A year later, though, Genoveva is still recovering. She's now plagued by interstitial lung disease. That's why another round of the virus this year is a terrifying possibility.
Fortunately the family's worst fears did not unfold. Genoveva was out of town when her great-granddaughter, Maricia, brought the virus home this time, and Maricia herself recovered. The other adults did not develop symptoms they credit the COVID vaccinations they'd been able to get before the delta surge this fall. Research published by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention concludes that vaccines offer better protection against reinfections than a natural infection. However, if a breakthrough infection occurs after someone's been vaccinated it will act like a natural "booster" and result in hybrid immunity according to Chin-Hong. He suggests most patients who are not immunocompromised wait three months until after a recent infection before getting a vaccine or a booster.
"Each exposure we have, whether it's from the infection or whether it's from the vaccine, improves our ability to combat an infection the next time around," says Dr. Julie Parsonnet, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Stanford University.
But Parsonnet also notes there are a lot of variables at play. First, immunity wanes. Second, the virus can mutate. Third, no vaccine provides 100% protection, and the shots may not be equally protective for everyone.
"There are certain people, including the elderly, people who are immunocompromised and people on dialysis, who really can't mount a good immune response," Parsonnet says. "They're always also going to be at risk. So every child getting vaccinated helps protect all those other people in the family that they may live with, or their neighbors."
Multi-generational living is common in Genoveva's community in the Bay Area. And her city, San Pablo, is a hot spot in Contra Costa County, where 1 out of 11 people have tested positive for the coronavirus. At the height of the pandemic, nearly 800 people tested positive in the county every day.
"Our neighborhood has three, four generations living in the same house," Genoveva says.
She says her recent booster shot allows her more peace of mind. Genoveva is looking forward to the day when her great-granddaughter and the rest of her family are finally vaccinated.
Read the original here:
COVID hit this family twice, but vaccines blunted reinfections : Shots - Health News - NPR
- 2024 CDC COVID-19 guidelines: Isolation, masks, what you should know - The Arizona Republic - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Long Covid and Impaired Cognition More Evidence and More Work to Do | NEJM - nejm.org - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Prospective Memory Assessment before and after Covid-19 | NEJM - nejm.org - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- A pandemic that won't go away as COVID enters its 5th year, NZ needs a realistic strategy - The Conversation - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Older US adults should get another COVID-19 shot, advisers say - Detroit News - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Vaping increases susceptibility to COVID-19 infection, study finds - News-Medical.Net - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Older U.S. adults should get another covid-19 shot, advisers say - TribLIVE - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Vapers More Susceptible to COVID-19 Infection Than Tobacco Smokers, Reveals Study | Weather.com - The Weather Channel - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- How we met: She was in the next hospital bed and I loved her accent - The Guardian - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Fleet To Hit Record Size In 2024 But Still Suffering Covid Hangover - Forbes - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- How vaccine hesitancy is contributing to rising rates of measles and COVID - PBS NewsHour - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- How did COVID-19 impact cancer incidence trends in the US? - News-Medical.Net - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- CT-based Assessment at 6-Month Follow-up of COVID-19 Pneumonia patients in China | Scientific Reports - Nature.com - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Covid in 2024: What to Know About Guidelines, Symptoms and Vaccines - WSJ - The Wall Street Journal - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Unlocking coronavirus structure through M protein research - News-Medical.Net - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- SARS-CoV-2 fragments may cause problems after infection - National Institutes of Health (NIH) (.gov) - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- People 65 and up should now get another COVID-19 vaccine, CDC recommends - cleveland.com - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Welcome to the 2024 CFA Annual Report | Covid-19 | news-journal.com - Longview News-Journal - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Exploring the reported adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines among vaccinated Arab populations: a multi-national ... - Nature.com - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- R.I. COVID-19 cases increased by 337 last week, with 2 deaths - Providence Business News - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Older US adults should get another COVID-19 shot, advisers say - NBC Bay Area - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Cognitive Deficits Seen in COVID-19 Patients Regardless of Symptom Duration - HealthDay - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- CDC recommends seniors get another Covid-19 shot - Baltimore Sun - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- Odds of Severe COVID-19 High for Hematologic Cancer Patients During Pandemic - HealthDay - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- COVID-19 may have small but lasting effects on cognition and memory | Imperial News - Imperial College London - February 29th, 2024 [February 29th, 2024]
- More free home COVID-19 tests available from US government - WCVB Boston - November 20th, 2023 [November 20th, 2023]
- Seniors made up 63 percent of covid hospitalizations earlier this year - The Washington Post - November 20th, 2023 [November 20th, 2023]
- Fifth Covid-19 wave sees biggest bump in virus detection since ... - New Zealand Herald - November 20th, 2023 [November 20th, 2023]
- KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor November 2023: With COVID ... - KFF - November 20th, 2023 [November 20th, 2023]
- What to Know About the New Dominant Covid Variant - The New York Times - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- Should You Get Another Covid Booster Now, or Wait Until the Fall? - The New York Times - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- A 'mini cyclone' helps detect coronavirus in the air - Science News Explores - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- Infection prevention and control in the context of coronavirus ... - World Health Organization - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- Serum ferritin level during hospitalization is associated with Brain ... - Nature.com - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- Rhode Island Man Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Theft and ... - Department of Justice - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- Posts Exaggerate Significance of Swiss Study on Heart Risk and ... - FactCheck.org - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- Wenstrup Presses Department of Education for Answers on Misuse ... - House Committee on Oversight and Reform | - August 12th, 2023 [August 12th, 2023]
- Biden Administration Fails to Share Intel on COVID-19 Origins, but Independent Evidence Is Piling Up - Heritage.org - June 24th, 2023 [June 24th, 2023]
- Do I need a booster vaccine if I recently had COVID? What if I'm not sure what I had? - The Conversation - June 24th, 2023 [June 24th, 2023]
- Psychics, wrestlers and churches: How online shopping and Covid changed mall tenants - Buffalo News - June 24th, 2023 [June 24th, 2023]
- Report: Incarcerated populations up 4% post-COVID - CorrectionsOne - June 24th, 2023 [June 24th, 2023]
- The National Average for Gross Revenue at ECP Locations Decreased for the Week of June 12 18, Jobson's Latest ... - Vision Monday - June 24th, 2023 [June 24th, 2023]
- ODNI Releases Report on the Potential Links Between the Wuhan ... - Office of the Director of National Intelligence - June 24th, 2023 [June 24th, 2023]
- U.S. Intelligence Agencies May Never Find Covid's Origins, Officials ... - The New York Times - June 24th, 2023 [June 24th, 2023]
- Covid-19 likely came from lab leak, says news report citing US energy ... - March 4th, 2023 [March 4th, 2023]
- Classified Energy Department report finds lab leak likely cause of ... - March 4th, 2023 [March 4th, 2023]
- Mayor Kirk Watson tests positive for COVID-19 - KEYE TV CBS Austin - February 5th, 2023 [February 5th, 2023]
- Biden's plan for ending the emergency declaration for COVID-19 signals a pivotal point in the pandemic 4 questions answered - The Conversation... - February 5th, 2023 [February 5th, 2023]
- Study finds one habit can significantly lower your odds of getting sick from COVID-19 - KATU - February 5th, 2023 [February 5th, 2023]
- How will life change once the COVID-19 emergency ends? - KFOX El Paso - February 5th, 2023 [February 5th, 2023]
- Shipping Corporation of India and Seven Islands Shipping re-join membership of INSA - ETInfra.com - January 30th, 2023 [January 30th, 2023]
- COVID-19 Response | United Nations - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Top German virologist says COVID-19 pandemic is over - Hindustan Times - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- China says impossible to track COVID spread as virus surges - Al Jazeera English - December 14th, 2022 [December 14th, 2022]
- What are the most common COVID symptoms now? Its no longer fever, loss of taste - AL.com - December 14th, 2022 [December 14th, 2022]
- Entropy and life - Wikipedia - November 27th, 2022 [November 27th, 2022]
- Negentropy - Wikipedia - November 27th, 2022 [November 27th, 2022]
- Coronavirus: OC reported 1,602 new cases and six more deaths over the past week, as of Nov. 17 - OCRegister - November 19th, 2022 [November 19th, 2022]
- How COVID-19 damages lungs: The virus attacks mitochondria, continuing an ancient battle that began in the primordial soup - The Conversation - October 30th, 2022 [October 30th, 2022]
- How to save this winter on heating costs - WKYC.com - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- 'Fonseca' book review: The Goan artist's biography misses the art of the matter - The New Indian Express - October 23rd, 2022 [October 23rd, 2022]
- Researchers' tests of lab-made version of Covid virus draw scrutiny - STAT - October 21st, 2022 [October 21st, 2022]
- Coronavirus: Orange County reported 1,427 more cases and seven more deaths in the past week as of Oct. 20 - OCRegister - October 21st, 2022 [October 21st, 2022]
- 3 Illinois Counties at High Community Level for COVID-19 as 1 Million Bivalent Booster Shots Have Been Administered - NBC Chicago - October 21st, 2022 [October 21st, 2022]
- What Is Coronavirus? | Johns Hopkins Medicine - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Gaston County reported 177 additional COVID-19 cases this week - Gaston Gazette - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Coronavirus Roundup: The Biden Administration Renews the Public Health Emergency for COVID-19 - GovExec.com - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Circulation of Public Warning Alert on COVID-19 vaccines fraudulently using PAHO's name and logo - World - ReliefWeb - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Time to Get Your Flu Shot and Your COVID-19 Booster Too - Health.mil - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Evasive COVID-19 subvariants that you dont know about are spreading fast - Poynter - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Deer and mink can harbor Covid-19: Why animal virologists say we need to worry - Inverse - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Europe likely entering another COVID wave, says WHO and ECDC - Reuters - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Without a nasal vaccine, the U.S. edge in fighting Covid is on the line - POLITICO - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- COVID-19 Daily Update 10-17-2022 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Coronavirus: Government seeking to extend powers behind COVID restrictions until 2025 - Newshub - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Shocking: EcoHealth Alliance receives another round of funding for coronavirus bat research in Asia - The Center Square - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Opportunities in Health Education in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Transforming Viral to Vital - Cureus - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Fauci says COVID-19 was politicized by triple whammy of outbreak, division and 2020 election - WJTV - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- How long does immunity from the new COVID bivalent boosters last 'in the real world'? - San Francisco Chronicle - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Respiratory illnesses have spiked among children. Here's what parents need to know. - Yahoo News - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]