UKH

It turns out that one of the possible advantages of catching Covid might be that, at least for a while, I might not need to do the tedious testing before I travel or when I return.  I know that travel to the US isn’t normalised until November 8th but does anyone have experience of using the ´Recovered from COVID-19’ QR code on the NHS app as evidence for travel?

There does seem to be an ´attestation’ form you will be able to use together with suitable evidence, but it all seems too good to be true.

A donation of serum would might be a more useful entry requirement!

You mean there're others?

I lost almost a stone in weight....

Indeed, but that doesn’t seem to be an option!

Well, only that it is probably the best way to avoid getting it again… I also lost some weight but this is more offset by being barely strong enough to chop a bit of firewood.  I’m off to the wall to assess the damage in the morning.

A vaccination form is just as simple.

You do qualify for that?

Except that there are plenty of people who have had covid twice.

As someone now suffering from Long Covid please don't get me started on the negatives. I envy you the climbing, I have enough trouble with stairs.

I misread that as a donation of sperm and thought I had missed something important there for a minute. 

Yes, but that doesn’t excuse you from the testing.  As I understand it, double vaccination plus proof of recovering from a positive PCR test means you don’t need to show a further negative test for 90 days.  It’s really not very clear however.

Yes! If you've contracted COVID and be lucky enough not to be seriously affected, then unless you're immunocompromised you can reasonably expect to be immune to catching or spreading COVID (SARS cov2) speculatively... for lifetime.

You couldn't except that from vaccination or otherwise. 

I thought it was pretty well established by now that recovery from covid does not give someone lifelong immunity? 

Some anecdata: I know 4 people from the same family who've had covid twice, c14 months apart (Mar 2020, May 2021). In the poster's defence, there's some caveats: "not...seriously affected", "[not] immunocompromised" and "reasonably expect", so my anecdata could fall into one of: they were seriously affected (one of them was in particular, but not all), they are all immunocompromised (no idea!) or they just happen to be unreasonable in expecting not to get it again. 

Current estimates (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-national-surveillance-of-possible-co...) show the incidence of reinfection is around 0.4% 

Good to read thank you. There was a lack of testing at the start of the pandemic so many people would not be classed as a possible reinfection in this study (understandably). Control measures and vaccinations would also stifle reinfections. Also, you might reasonably expect reinfection to be more likely over time (that study is from May 2021). My anecdata is reinfection 14 months (edit: sorry, actually 16 months) apart...not sure anybody was officially tested for covid 16 months prior to May 2021.

Edit: to add that Delta was only starting to become dominant in the UK following the study. My anecdata was Mar 2020 variant with reinfection of Delta late July 2021. Would be interesting to see further more up to date studies.

Honestly, I'm not a negative person and I'm pleased to read that article, just cautious about headlines from studies without all the context.

Yeah it's estimated and there a lot of context and nuance to be taken, but regardless of if it's 0.4% or maybe double that, it's still thankfully a pretty low amount

So how's do you explain a friend who had an antibody test saying she had had a previous asymptomatic infection (I assume asymptomatic counts as not seriously affected) and then went on later to have a positive PCR test? Not immunocompromised that we are aware of and despite double vaccination status has been very unwell (not hospitalised fortunately) with it.

Double infections are not at all unusual (I admit maybe different variants, but that's not much reassurance given that new variants are to be expected) and I even know people who have had PCR confirmed infections of covid on four occasions.

According to PHE gathered statistics, based on millions of PCR test results... re infection is pretty unusual.

Maybe lots of people are using unreported lateral flow tests and reinfection is more common that the PHE study suggests?