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This bullshit about immunity lasting only three months is everywhere tonight. It's a total misunderstanding.
What the CDC said: people are unlikely to get reinfected in the first 3 months.
What the news reported: people *are* likely to get reinfected after the first 3 months.
What the CDC said: people are unlikely to get reinfected in the first 3 months.
What the news reported: people *are* likely to get reinfected after the first 3 months.
I posted about this in more detail in a response to ABC News.
(short thread) https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1294406797512650752
(short thread) https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1294406797512650752
Oh for fuck's sake, now Twitter itself is in on the game. https://twitter.com/AlanVRK/status/1294410214574350336
I am curious how this mistake ended up on all of the media channels. I personally don't think the CDC statement is that misleading. It doesn't even make claims about duration of immunity; it makes a recommendation that has a duration in it.
I don't know how you turn that into a story about new scientific evidence. And if you do, I don't know how you get the direction backwards, confusing "immune for at least three months" for "immune for at most three months."
The words "up to" in the CDC guidelines don't help.
The words "up to" in the CDC guidelines don't help.
So do the news outlets just copy one another?
Because that seems to be the parsimonious explanation for the ubiquity of a rather unlikely mistake.
Because that seems to be the parsimonious explanation for the ubiquity of a rather unlikely mistake.
CDC has now issued a clarification. To my surprise, it does not address the misperception that immunity goes away after 3 months. It merely stresses that CDC is not asserting that reinfection is impossible during the first three months after infection. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0814-updated-isolation-guidance.html
