Coronavirus: A Reinfection Death in The Netherlands

Can you catch COVID-19 a second time? The answer is yes though there haven't been very many documented cases. Newsweek (Nov 13) reports:

Since the start of the pandemic, it has been unclear how long immunity lasts in people who have been infected with coronavirus. However, a number of recent reports show sufferers can be reinfected. The first reinfection case recorded was a woman in Hong Kong. In total, there have now been five confirmed reinfection cases.

The article goes on to discuss the case of an 89-year-old woman from the Netherlands who recently died from a second infection. She also suffered from cancer, which might have resulted in her death. The following is an interesting quote:

After analyzing the viral genomes from her first and second positive coronavirus tests, researchers found they were different strains, showing she had been reinfected with the virus, rather than the second test being the result of the first infection and "prolonged shedding."

I wonder if that is an important tidbit of information: that you're more likely to get reinfected via another strain of the virus.

This is a trend to keep an eye on though at the moment I wouldn't consider it concerning. As mentioned in the article there are only 5 confirmed cases, which is insignificant considering that 10% of the world population (or 760 million people) may have already been infected. As for the 89-year-old woman, she got COVID-19 a second time after just two months. This gives me some hope. At this point, if this was a significant threat, there should be far more examples of individuals getting a second infection. On the other hand, many people at the beginning of this pandemic did not know they had the virus due to a lack of testing. I wonder what the possibilities are that current confirmed cases are people who are dealing with this virus a second time?