Expert offers possible explanation for 51 supposed COVID-free Koreans who tested positive again

 

Daegu South Korea

An infectious disease expert has offered one probable explanation for a seemingly strange case of the re-emergence of the coronavirus among Korean patients.

In a stunning announcement yesterday, South Korea revealed that 51 cases that had been believed to have recovered from COVID-19, tested positive after a second round of testing.

The patients, from the city of Daegu, South Korea, had all spent time in quarantine while recovering from the virus, but were diagnosed again within days of being released.

This revelation seemed to contradict the commonly held belief about how the virus operates, specifically that patients are immune to the virus at least in the midterm after recovery. While Korean health officials did not believe that the positive cases were from reinfection they suggested that it may be to due to the reactivation of previously undetectable levels of the virus in the patients.

However, Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, who spoke to Mailonline, had a different view.

Professor Hunter believes the positive result was neither due to reinfection nor reactivation.

Hunter believes this recent batch of positives was simply due to a false result on the first round of testing.

“Personally I think the most likely explanation is that the clearance samples were false negative.” he told Mailonline.

Patients leaving quarantine are normally tested twice before being completely cleared. The virus test has roughly a 1 in 5 chance of giving a false negative.

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2 Comments

  1. Ras B
    April 8, 2020

    Very interesting. I contend we pose as experts in a scenario we do not understand. Obviously the explanation from South Korea was ridiculous and goes against basic physiology. If one’s body is able to mount immunoglobulins and T-Lymphocytes cells (type of WBC that fight against viruses) This would simply wipe out the so called cadre of virion particles involved in the reactivation.
    Paul Hunter’s explanation is a more logical one! But still not totally believable, if the current test has a 20% false negative rate, could this simply be a bad batch of test kits?

    It is madness to use a diagnostic test with a false negative rate of 20% to rule out whether a patient has a deadly highly contagious disease or not. It rattles the mind; the manufactures and associated scientist should be held accountable for the virus spread.

    The only way to accurately discern all these plausible explanations for the unexpected S.Korea findings is to screen the involved patients for relevant…

  2. derp
    April 7, 2020

    wait awhile so the person that got the all clear 8-O

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