This Briefing about Covid and Immunity provides answers to eight related questions. Each of these questions is of immediate practical importance as we begin to deal with the consequences of both the Holyrood and Westminster Governments’ reassurance that we can now live safely with Covid without taking any precautions because we have the necessary vaccines and treatments. The answers to these questions reveal how far from the truth this reassurance is.

You can choose which question or questions you are most interested in by clicking on the relevant question in the list below. Or you can read all eight answers and download the complete briefing for viewing, sharing or printing.

The eight questions are:

1.Will a Covid infection protect me from getting ill with Covid again?

2.Is it true that by getting fewer infections in 2020 and 2021 as a result of less mixing, adults and especially children have developed an “immunity debt”, causing them to get sick more often and worse now than would have been the case otherwise?

3.Is it true that common respiratory viruses are circulating at higher rates now, compared to pre-Covid years?  

4.What about respiratory virus infections which get admitted to hospitals?

5.Is it true that children were largely protected from viruses during 2020 and 2021?

6.Is there any evidence that children exposed to many different viruses early in life have a better immune system?

7.What about scarlet fever? 

8. Is there evidence that Covid can mess up people’s immune system so that it doesn’t work properly, over and above the fact that all types of viral infections can lead to bacterial infections in some people?