Idris Elba provided an update on his health after he and his wife Sabrina Dhowre tested positive for the current SARS-CoV-2 virus sweeping the globe.
Elba sent a message on Twitter Wednesday, March 25, and said he and Dhowre feel just fine. Elba also shared another piece of information, about his chances of himself and his wife being infected with the illness again in the future.
“Hoping everyone is coping with this $@@!!” wrote Elba next to a picture of himself. “Currently still quarantine. Sab and I still feel ok so far with no changes. Dr told us that after quarantine we will be immune for a certain time since our antibodies fought this. At some point we’d like to go home to London. Bsafe.”
According to Li QinGyuan, the director of pneumonia prevention and treatment at Beijing’s China Japan Friendship Hospital, Elba isn’t wrong about possibly being immune to the illness down the road. But that doesn’t mean he can’t catch it.
“In certain individuals, the antibody cannot last that long,” Li told USA Today. “For many patients who have been cured, there is a likelihood of relapse.”
Dr. Stephen Gluckman, who’s the medical director of Penn Global Medicine and works with infectious diseases at Penn Medicine, also spoke about the chances of people developing immunity to the illness once they’ve been infected.
“For the most part, the feeling is once you’ve had a specific coronavirus, you are immune,” he told HuffPost. “We don’t have enough data to say that with this with this coronavirus, but it is likely.”
After Elba gave an update on his and Dhowre’s conditions, people had questions for him.
“Have you felt sick at all? Like any symptoms at all?” someone asked.
“No not really,” Elba wrote back. “The day I got tested I had body aches and a headache.”