Those who thought getting the coronavirus once was bad enough may not be comforted by new research from South Korea.
Jeong Eun-kyeong, the director of South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on Monday that the coronavirus may be able to reactivate in people who have been “cured” of the disease because 51 patients tested positive for the virus after being discharged with negative results.
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“While we are putting more weight on reactivation as the possible cause, we are conducting a comprehensive study on this,” Jeong said. “There have been many cases when a patient during treatment will test negative one day and positive another.”
Patients are considered recovered when they test negative for the disease twice within a 24-hour interval. Similar worries of reactivation have scared Chinese citizens in Wuhan, many of whom fled the city after a 10-week lockdown was lifted on April 7.
South Korean officials have been lauded for their efforts to keep the coronavirus from overwhelming hospitals and resources. As of Thursday afternoon, South Korea reported over 10,000 cases but only 204 deaths, which represents a sharp contrast to countries such as Italy, Spain, and the United States, where the number of cases and death rates have been much higher.
