Recovered coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals in China's Guangdong province have later tested positive for the virus again - and nobody knows why
Coronavirus: Patients testing positive twice say officials
China has discovered that roughly 14% of patients who recover from coronavirus test positive for the killer disease again with the mechanism behind the virus' apparent ability to re-infect a complete mystery.
This comes after Japan reported that a female tour-bus guide aged in her 40s had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus for a second time in Osaka. Promoted Story
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Normally, when you overcome a virus you gain immunity for a while afterwards which is why it is so rare for children to get chickenpox twice.
The statistics from China came from reports from hospitals in Guangdong province. China has found that 14% of recovered coronavirus patients later tested positive again China has found that 14% of recovered coronavirus patients later tested positive again (Image: Getty) Related Articles
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A positive test means the recovered patients may still be carrying the virus, straitstimes.com reports.
Currently, scientists do not know why it happens and whether these patients could still be infectious, said Song Tie, deputy director of the Guangdong Centre of Disease Control and Prevention.
It is thought that the patients may still be fighting-off lung infections and are not yet completely healthy, Song added. Read More CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
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Patients are considered recovered when throat and nose swabs are negative in two consecutive tests, a CT scan is negative for lung lesions, and they have no fever or other symptoms, according to COVID-19 guidelines by the National Health Commission.
Dr Babak Ashrafi, at UK-based online doctor Zava, told Metro.co.uk: Experts are busy gathering information from those who have become infected to see how well their immune systems react and how long theyll remain immune. Londoners have started to take coronavirus precautions (Image: SIPA USA/PA Images) Related Articles
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We do know that when you catch a virus, your body learns how to fight it off.
However, like our minds, our bodies can forget over time how to do this and immunity can wear off over time after initial infection.
Another theory is that the original tests which said the patients had fully recovered were wrong but that also raises concerns about containing the virus.
#1: Horse To: Ada (#0)
Horse posted on 2020-02-27 21:38:59 Reply Private Reply
#2: Pinguinite To: Ada (#0)
It could be that these recovered people are simply reencountering the virus from infected people, so the virus is on them but not IN them. In that case, testing positive does not equate to reinfection.
If there are symptoms, it's possible they are due to another illness, say the ordinary flu, and the presence of coronavirus is simply coincidental, and, again, does not indicate reinfection.
Finally, maybe they simply didn't actually recover, but simply had medicines discontinued which allowed the virus to make a comeback.
Pinguinite posted on 2020-02-27 21:50:38 Reply Private Reply
#3: Ada To: Pinguinite (#2)
Ada posted on 2020-02-28 14:29:51 Reply Private Reply
#4: Pinguinite To: Ada (#3)
If that includes false positives, then that's also a possibility.
Dengue fever is like that as well. That's a tropical mosquito born virus.
Pinguinite posted on 2020-02-28 14:52:37 Reply Private Reply
#5: Lod To: Ada, 4um (#0)
After a prominent celebrity went public with the following statement on national television, I tried to contact him for a follow-up. No luck so far. He does seem to urge people to take the flu shot, but his other remarks are potentially explosive, if you fill in a few blanks and glean the implications. Here is his statement:
"I want you to understand something that shocked me when I saw it. I spoke with Dr. Fauci on this and I was really amazed, and I think most people are amazed to hear it. The [ordinary] flu in our country kills from 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year. That was shocking to me. So far, if you look at what we [in the US] have with the 15 people [diagnosed with the coronavirus] and they're recovering, one is pretty sick, but hopefully we'll [he'll] recover. But the others are in great shape. But think of that. 25,000 to 69,000 [ordinary flu deaths annually]. Over the last 10 years, we've lost 360,000. These are people that have died from the flu, from what we call the flu..."
He seems to be pointing a big fat accusatory finger at US public health agencies, like the CDC, as he says, Look, all these deaths from ordinary flu every single year, like clockwork, and you don't declare THAT an epidemic or an emergency, so why are you issuing stern warnings when 15 people in the US have been diagnosed with the coronavirus; imagine the reaction if we had 35,000 deaths year after year from the coronavirus in the US; you would go nuts; what's wrong with you people?
You can see why I wanted to follow up with him. All sorts of issues to explore and discuss.
Of course, as I've shown in these pages many times, he's dead wrong about how many people can be confirmed as annual flu deaths in the US. That number is really miniscule. Nevertheless, his point stands: if national public health agencies CLAIM that 35,000 people a year die of ordinary flu, why don't they call that an epidemic? And why do they call 15 "coronavirus cases" in the US an emergency?
I wanted to sort all this out with him, but it looks like I won't be able to.
His name is Donald Trump, and he made his comments Wednesday night during his address to the nation.
The press made very little mention of this, except to disparage him for daring to compare ordinary pedestrian flu to the white-hot coronavirus situation. What is ordinary about the claim that 360,000 Americans per decade die of the flu? That's a puzzle, isn't it? I just called my doctor. He told me to take two Thorazine, go to bed, and think about it again in the morning.
Lod posted on 2020-02-28 15:00:20 Reply Private Reply