Submission + - COVID rebounds: Immune responses may be reignited by cleanup of viral scraps (arstechnica.com)
It's still unclear just how common the phenomenon is, but it certainly happens in some proportion of Paxlovid-treated patients. In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even issued a health alert over the rebound reports.
But, amid the rising awareness, it has also become clear that patients who have not been treated with Paxlovid can also rebound. In fact, in Pfizer's clinical trials of Paxlovid, researchers noted that about 1 percent to 2 percent of both treatment and placebo groups had rebounds.
Together, this has raised a slew of questions: Are the rebounds reignited infections? Are people still infectious? Do they need to resume isolation? Are they again at risk of severe disease? Did their immune systems fail to mount an effective response? Is the virus mutating to become resistant to Paxlovid? Is omicron causing more rebounds than previous variants?