Anne Fletcher and her family have come down with COVID-19 a total of 14 times between them.
“I’ve had it three times confirmed, my husband’s had it four, I have two children who had it three times each, and a baby who’s had it once confirmed,” she said.
The family is not alone. On internet forums including Reddit, users share stories about contracting COVID-19 three, four, and sometimes five times each.
Dr Fletcher is an immunologist at a university in Victoria and her husband is in the police. The first time the family became unwell and tested positive was in 2022 during the first week of the school term.
“We all fell like dominoes,” Dr Fletcher said.
“It’s these cases, I suppose, where you’re interacting with a lot of different people, interacting with the public, that increases your risk.”
For Dr Fletcher, the clearest explanation for why her family have contracted COVID-19 multiple times is, in her words, her “germy children”. The children are now aged nine, seven and one.
But her husband believes he caught it once at work despite wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE), and the family also got sick when travelling overseas.
Read more: Anne and her family have now caught COVID 14 times. Here’s the latest advice