COVID-19, and early findings show that immunity to the novel coronavirus is less protective than that to influenza — the common flu.Tania Watts, a PhD with the department of immunology at the University of Toronto, says researchers took blood cells from 13 people who had recovered from COVID-19 within four to 12 weeks since the patients’ full recovery, then stimulated their blood cells with parts of the virus to see if their immune cells would recognize the virus an create a response.“We compared these responses to what we see with the common influenza virus, a virus to which most adults are immune and are exposed to often,” Watts said.“All the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) recovered patients had immune memory responses to both SARS-CoV-2 and to.