As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to spread, more countries are growing comfortable enough with it that they are moving ahead with removing more and more pandemic-era restrictions. But while populaces may be adapting to living with the virus, recent research suggests that it remains contagious enough to catch more than once.

On Tuesday, a research paper was published by a team in Denmark that found people who previously were infected by Omicron were at risk of reinfection, especially if it is one of its subvariant known as the "stealth strain". According to the researchers, these variants spread even faster than the regular Omicron variant and reinfections took place within a 20 to 60-day interval.

Scientists and health experts say that the sub-lineage “stealth Omicron” has particular mutations that make it harder for lab-based PCR tests to detect. This means that a person who is showing symptoms attributed to “stealth omicron” may test positive for COVID-19 in all the usual tests, but they may not necessarily test positive for the new subvariant.

These findings sound dire, but there are a few caveats to keep in mind.

For one, the rate of reinfection that the researchers detected has been rather small with just 47 people showing infection with both variants of 1.8 million positive tests that they reviewed. Like previous variants, a majority of those infected were unvaccinated and tended to be on the younger side. The symptoms themselves between the first and second infections did not appear to be meaningfully different with none of the infected persons requiring hospitalization.

These findings have yet to be peer-reviewed, but they do promise more assurance that countries can begin adapting to an “endemic stage” of COVID-19. Already countries worldwide are relaxing their COVID-19 restrictions, and officials are actively speaking about learning to live alongside the virus rather than expect it to be eliminated completely.

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