For many viruses, once you have had it once, you can’t get it again. After I experienced disabling long-term effects from my first COVID-19 infection in the spring of 2020, I really hoped that this would be the case with COVID.

Unfortunately, we now know that it’s not only possible but commonplace to become reinfected with COVID-19. The immunological landscape created by COVID-19 looks less like one-time viruses like measles and more like COVID’s immune-evasive cousins, the coronaviruses that cause common colds.

“Learning to live with the virus” without mitigation measures means that most of us will be infected with COVID multiple times, particularly if you live, work, or attend school in a congregate setting.

But what are the long-term effects of multiple COVID reinfections? Are reinfections typically milder than a first bout with COVID? How do reinfections affect people who already have Long COVID?

These questions and more about reinfections are yet unanswered. Even though the risk of reinfections is high, we lack data on their outcomes.

I’ve been working with the Patient Led Research Collaborative (PLRC) to tackle this problem, and we’ve recently gone live with a survey we designed to look at how COVID reinfections impact long-term health outcomes.

The survey is fully anonymous and is open to anyone worldwide. You don’t need to have Long COVID to participate, you don’t need any medical records or tests, and you don’t even need to have ever had COVID. In fact, if you’ve managed to evade the virus thus far, your responses will serve as very important controls.

Those under 18 years old will need a parent or guardian to help complete the survey, but we welcome and invite everyone to take the survey. Everyone’s experience matters.

As an additional incentive, US residents who take the survey before 5/20 can enter in a drawing for three $100 Amazon gift cards.

You can take the survey in English by clicking directly on this link. The survey is also currently available in Chinese, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

We don’t have the answers to the questions about reinfections yet, but with your help, we will get there. Please take the survey here to help us figure out the impact of COVID reinfections.