https://www.wired.com/story/sorry-immunity-to-covid-19-wont-be-like-a-superpower/

There are signs that the pandemic peak has passed in New York City, and maybe other hotspots of infection, too. While there will be much more suffering to come, both in these places and elsewhere, talk has turned in recent days to how we’re going to get people back out into society again. Central to these discussions has been the notion of immunity. Which of us is safe from Covid-19, and how might that be measured? Are existing antibody tests good enough to clear people for going back to work? Should we put in place a nationwide system of immunity passports or certificates? What about raising an army of the recovered, to lead the nation’s fight against the virus?

The answers to these questions come with considerable caveats. As many have now pointed out, we can’t assume that any prior exposure to the virus will make it so a person can’t get sick again. Even if our bodies learn to fight the illness off, we don’t know how long this protection might endure. “Immunity after any infection can range from lifelong and complete to nearly nonexistent,” explained the epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch in the New York Times on Sunday. “So far, however, only the first glimmers of data are available about immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.”