Covid reinfections in the UK: how likely are you to catch coronavirus again?

Though rare at the start of the pandemic, reinfections have become increasingly common as the months and years wear on – particularly since the arrival of Omicron, which prompted a 15-fold increase in the rate of reinfections, data from the Office for National Statistics suggests. In part, this is because of a decline in protective antibodies triggered by infection and/or vaccination over time, but the virus has also evolved to evade some of these immune defences, making reinfection more likely.