According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), the COVID-19 coronavirus can “reactivate” in recovered patients. For example, about 51 patients who have recovered from COVID-19 in South Korea have been retested and tested positive for the virus again, the KCDC said. This does not necessarily mean that they were reinfected with COVID-19, but it is possible that the virus was reactivated in these people who tested positive again after being released from quarantine , said Jeong Eun-kyeong , director general of the KCDC . Jeong added that the centers are investigating the issue, but that the possibility of COVID-19 reactivation is more likely than the patients being reinfected with the virus. There were even quite a few cases where a patient during treatment underwent tests that showed one day that he was negative for the virus and the next day that he was positive. A patient is considered to have fully recovered when he undergoes two diagnostic tests within 24 hours, the results of which show him to be negative for the virus.
South Korea was one of the first countries to be hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the country has recorded just 200 deaths so far. It is worth noting that Korea has not taken measures such as lockdowns and business closures to deal with the pandemic. Fears of a possible reactivation of COVID-19 in recovered patients are also intensifying in China, where the virus first appeared last December, after reports that some people tested positive for the virus again and died after “recovering” and being discharged from hospital. It is not yet clear what is causing the reactivation of the virus, but according to one scenario, it may be due to inconsistencies in diagnostic test results.
South Korea has reported 10,384 cases of the coronavirus as of Wednesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News, while 6,776 patients have been discharged from hospitals. Epidemiologists around the world are conducting research to learn more about how COVID-19 is caused. Korea is at the forefront of tracking coronavirus cases, both those with obvious symptoms of the virus and asymptomatic cases, which are also causing particular concern in China, where the pandemic appears to be now under control.
