---
title: "Woman Dies After Catching COVID-19 a Second Time"
description: "A woman died after catching the coronavirus, even though she had recovered from COVID-19 months prior. It's the first confirmed death linked to reinfection."
date: "2020-10-14"
modified: "2020-10-14"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/woman-dies-catching-covid19-twice"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "coronavirus"
  - "covid19"
  - "medicine"
  - "reinfection"
---

# Woman Dies After Catching COVID-19 a Second Time

![A woman died after catching the coronavirus, even though she had recovered from COVID-19 months prior. It's the first confirmed death linked to reinfection.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/woman-dies-catching-covid19-twice.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NIAID\</em\>*

For the first time that we know of, a COVID-19 patient has died after recovering from the coronavirus once and then catching it again.

The 89-year-old woman initially recovered from COVID after spending a few days in the hospital. Two months later, she tested positive again and her condition rapidly deteriorated before she ultimately died, *[CNN ](<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/europe/covid-19-dutch-woman-reinfection-death-intl/index.html>)*[reports](<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/europe/covid-19-dutch-woman-reinfection-death-intl/index.html>). That makes her the first confirmed death of a patient who caught COVID-19 two separate times, and one of just a few confirmed reinfections overall.

The doctors who oversaw her case noticed a particularly troubling detail. According to [their research](<https://www.dutchnews.nl/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ciaa1538.pdf>), which has been accepted for publication in the journal *Clinical Infectious Diseases*, the woman didn't have any COVID-19 antibodies in her blood when she tested positive the second time, suggesting that any resistance to the disease built up by our immune systems [can rapidly deteriorate](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-antibodies-fade-after-few-months>).

The woman was undergoing treatment for a rare bone marrow cancer, *CNN* reports, but the doctors say it's unlikely that her immunocompromised state contributed to her death.

The news follows a report, also from this week, of the first COVID-19 patient to catch the coronavirus twice and [have a more severe case](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/reinfected-patients-second-case-covid19-more-severe>) the second time around.

In both instances, doctors confirmed that the patients caught the coronavirus twice — rather than having it temporarily go dormant — because they both had genetically different strains across infections.

As more instances of COVID-19 reinfection pop up, doctors are calling into question the [assumptions that they made](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/bioethicist-covid19-immunity-passports-bad-idea>) about how our immune system responds to the coronavirus. It turns out, in other words, that our biological defenses may not be as robust as many thought.

## 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>)