Antibody neutralization to SARS-CoV-2 and variants after 1 year in Wuhan, China

Most COVID-19 convalescents can build effective anti-SARS-CoV-2 humoral immunity, but it remains unclear how long it can maintain and how efficiently it can prevent the reinfection of the emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. Here, we tested the sera from 248 COVID-19 convalescents around 1 year post-infection in Wuhan, the earliest known epicenter. SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin G (IgG) was well maintained in most patients and potently neutralizes the infection of the original strain and the B.1.1.7 variant. However, varying degrees of immune escape was observed on the other tested variants in a patient-specific manner, with individuals showing remarkably broad neutralization potency. The immune escape can be largely attributed to several critical spike mutations. These results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can elicit long-lasting immunity but this is escaped by the emerging variants.