Poor immunity or mutations? South Korea investigates 'shrewd' coronavirus as reinfections creep up [View all]
South China Morning Post
This week in Asia
By John Power
Published: 5:31pm, 16 Apr, 2020
In late February, South Korean health officials on the front lines of the battle against the novel coronavirus noticed a strange phenomenon. After contracting and recovering from the virus, a patient tested positive for a second time. Within weeks, the number of patients testing positive twice rose steadily and the trend became clear.
By Thursday, at least 141 people in South Korea had retested positive for the virus officially called SARS-CoV-2, according to the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, most of them in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, the original centre of the country’s outbreak. Fifty-five of the cases were people in their 20s or 30s.
... Although it is possible, many experts are sceptical about whether the trend represents cases of actual reinfection – which would raise serious doubts about the ability to develop a vaccine – based on existing knowledge of other coronaviruses, which people are generally immune to for at least a year after infection.
... Experts widely agree it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the situation in South Korea. At the same time, many anticipate that the wealth of data emerging from the country’s mass testing will include answers to this and other questions about the virus in time. “South Korea has done an excellent job with epidemiologic surveillance,” said Howard Forman, a professor of public health policy at Yale School of Management in the US. “I am counting on them to clarify this soon.”
Much more here. This is an excellent article, explaining the issue of the 141 cases and the potential reasons for the positive findings. Still unknown where we are going but we should thank our lucky stars for the South Korean testing data.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3080251/poor-immunity-or-mutations-south-korea-investigates
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