Abstract
Background: There is currently a pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The intensity and duration of this first wave in the UK may be dependent on whether SARS-CoV-2 transmits more effectively in the winter than the summer and the UK Government response is partially built upon the assumption that those infected will develop immunity to reinfection in the short term. In this paper we examine evidence for seasonality and immunity to laboratoryconfirmed seasonal coronavirus (HCoV) from a prospective cohort study in England. Methods: In this analysis of the Flu Watch cohort, we examine seasonal trends for PCR-confirmed coronavirus infections (HCoVNL63, HCoV-OC43, and HCoV-229E) in all participants during winter seasons (2006-2007, 2007-2008, 2008-2009) and during the first wave of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic (May-Sep 2009). We also included data from the pandemic and ‘post-pandemic’ winter seasons (2009-2010 and 2010-2011) to identify individuals with two confirmed HCoV infections and examine evidence for immunity against homologous reinfection. Results: We tested 1,104 swabs taken during respiratory illness and detected HCoV in 199 during the first four seasons.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 1-17 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Wellcome Open Research |
Volume | 5 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020. Aldridge RW et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords
- HCoV-229E
- HCoV-NL63
- HCoV-OC43
- SARS-CoV-2
- epidemiology
- pandemic
- public health