Whereas the short term increase in infection rates I believe you're referring to is an effect over the few months following infection with Covid. Both short term, but different meanings of how short exactly.
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Yep – can have a short-term interference effect due to innate immunity and changed contacts (which has also happened with other viruses, e.g. 2009 pandemic flu likely delayed the RSV wave: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20158981/), but also potential change in medium-term susceptibility following illness.
aug 14, 2025, 8:33 am • 1 0 • view
I also suspect the reason UK COVID variant waves were so clockwork-like in frequency during 2022-23 was that – mutation aside – it was very hard for a new variant to take off while another was causing a wave, due to short-term immunity effects. So had to effectively 'wait' until wave over.
aug 14, 2025, 8:35 am • 3 1 • view
Thanks!
aug 14, 2025, 9:53 am • 3 0 • view