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Yet, epidemiological outcomes may diverge when assuming polarised immunity\u2014individuals are either fully susceptible or completely immune\u2014compared to leaky immunity\u2014where all individuals are partially protected. We explore the differences between the two by taking advantage of a non-Markovian framework, which allows us to explicitly record the \u2018age\u2019 of the immunity and vary its effectiveness accordingly. A basic scenario reveals that leaky immunity leads to a shorter time between reinfections. A more data-driven scenario based on SARS-CoV-2 data finds that leaky immunity yields substantially more reinfections than polarised immunity and a higher number of infected individuals, yet with a lower probability of hospitalisation. Our findings emphasize the critical role of immune memory modelling assumptions, especially for long-term epidemiological dynamics and public health policies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1013399","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,19]],"date-time":"2025-08-19T17:39:43Z","timestamp":1755625183000},"page":"e1013399","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Leaky or polarised immunity: Non-Markovian modelling highlights the impact of immune memory 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