You're less likely to get long COVID after a second infection than a first

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/14/ [login to see] /youre-less-likely-to-get-long-covid-after-a-second-infection-than-a-first
If you've gotten COVID more than once, as many people have, you may be wondering if your risk for suffering the lingering symptoms of long COVID is the same with every new infection.

The answer appears to be no. The chances of long COVID — a suite of symptoms including exhaustion and shortness of breath — falls sharply between the first and second infections, according to recent research.

"It does seem that the risk is significantly lower the second time around than the first time around for developing long COVID," says Daniel Ayoubkhani, a statistician at the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom, who's been studying long COVID in that country.

But the risk does not fall to zero, according to the latest results of an ongoing survey of more than 500,000 people in the U.K. through March 5.

"The risk of long COVID is significantly lower, ... but it's still non-negligible. It's not impossible to develop long COVID the second time if you didn't develop it the first time. I think that's the key takeaway from our study," Ayoubkhani says.