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You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Maddie Sifai here, and today we are talking about immunity.

Everyone wants to know, especially now that many states around the U.S.

have started to open up, does getting the coronavirus once make you immune to it?

Or could you get it again?

And people are looking for the answer in antibody tests, tests that can tell you

if you've had coronavirus.

A lot of the antibody tests that we're seeing come back either positive or negative.

And that makes immunity also seem like it's positive or negative.

Cut and dry, right?

Not so much.

I think the better way to think about immunity is as a continuum or a spectrum

where your body has reactions somewhere along this really long axis.

And at one end, our immune system is beautifully complex.

It takes many different molecules and cells to fight off infection.

Catherine Wu, much like me, is a microbiologist and a big fan of the immune system.

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