---
title: "Your Coronavirus Antibodies Might Fade After Just a Few Months"
description: "New research suggests that coronavirus antibodies and survivor's immunity could fade away after just two to three months."
date: "2020-06-18"
modified: "2020-06-18"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-antibodies-fade-after-few-months"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "antibodies"
  - "coronavirus"
  - "covid19"
  - "medicine"
---

# Your Coronavirus Antibodies Might Fade After Just a Few Months

![New research suggests that coronavirus antibodies and survivor's immunity could fade away after just two to three months.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coronavirus-antibodies-fade-after-few-months.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NIAID\</em\>*

After your immune system fights off a disease, conventional wisdom dictates that your body builds up resistance to it in the future.

Unfortunately, when it comes to COVID-19, the reality may be more complex.

The main way that the immune system builds up resistance is [by producing antibodies](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/what-its-like-covid-antibody-test>), which are proteins coded to hunt down specific pathogens. Sometimes, these antibodies fend off disease for years. But *[The New York Times](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/coronavirus-cases-usa-world.html#link-7ea3a132>)*[ reports](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/coronavirus-cases-usa-world.html#link-7ea3a132>) that the antibodies our bodies develop against COVID-19 can fade away in just two to three months — especially for those who had mild cases.

That poses a problem for governments that banked on developing herd immunity — resistance to future infections at a societal scale — in the absence of an effective vaccine or treatment for the coronavirus. It also suggests that doling out "[immunity passports](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/bioethicist-covid19-immunity-passports-bad-idea>)" will only complicate the situation as some survivors may gradually become vulnerable again.

"These data might indicate the risks of using COVID-19 'immunity passports' and support the prolongation of public health interventions, including social distancing, hygiene, isolation of high-risk groups and widespread testing," the scientists behind [the study](<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6>), published Thursday in the journal *Nature Medicine*, wrote in their paper.

It's important to note several caveats. For one, the research involved a small number of participants — only 37 survivors who showed symptoms and another 37 who didn't — so a larger study is necessary to gain more statistical certainty.

"Though this is quite a small sample size of patients," Imperial College London immunologist Danny Altmann, who didn't work on the study, [told *Agence France-Presse*](<https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/mild-virus-cases-may-bestow-far-lower-immunity-study-doc-1to46y1>), "it is in line with some concerns that natural immunity to coronaviruses can be quite short-lived."

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)