Conflicting reports on coronavirus antibodies’ resilience over time

2 September 2020, 2:43 pm

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Data from Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service shows that antibodies in patients who have recovered from coronavirus drop off precipitously within weeks, the Ynet news site reports.

MDA data further showed that some 17 percent of recovered patients did not produce antibodies at all, Ynet says.

Meanwhile a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine has conflicting findings. In a study of some 30,000 people in Iceland — one of the largest yet — researchers found antibodies can last some four months.

There is no immediate explanation for this discrepancy, unfortunately, and it could be a result of sample sizes, different indicators surveyed and a plethora of other factors.