The head of a remote Siberian region has contracted the coronavirus a second time in what may be Russia’s first documented case of reinfection.
Sholban Kara-Ool, the governor of the republic of Tyva on the Mongolian border, was admitted to the hospital again this week three months after his first hospitalization. He said doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia.
“I almost believed that you couldn’t get sick with it twice,” Kara-Ool said in an Instagram video he posted from the hospital Monday.
“Maybe that’s why I got sick.”
Kara-Ool, 54, said his latest symptoms consisted mainly of a severe headache, a shift from the chest pain he experienced three months ago.
He first contracted Covid-19 on May 24 and was discharged on June 4.
In Hong Kong, scientists claimed to have discovered the world’s first case of reinfection when a 33-year-old resident tested positive at an airport screening earlier in August. His reinfection came four and a half months after he recovered from Covid-19 and was assumed to have developed immunity.
European virologists have also confirmed two reinfections in the Netherlands and Belgium, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty outlet reported Tuesday.
