Coronavirus: Scientists conclude people cannot be infected twice

[Maxheader]

28. Wow! Big news!

Awhile back I read a lot of pessimistic views about this?

But now that I think about it, the virus turned out to be remnants..
–—

Finding remnants of the virus?

For now, the most likely explanation of why people are retesting positive seems to be that the test is picking up remnants of the virus.

The KCDC has re-investigated three cases from the same family where patients tested positive after recovering, Kwon says.

In each of these cases, scientists tried to incubate the virus but weren't able to -- that told them there was no live virus present.

Like many countries, South Korea uses a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to test for the virus. The RT-PCR test works by finding evidence of a virus's genetic information -- or RNA -- in a sample taken from the patient.

According to Kwon, these tests may still be picking up parts of the RNA even after the person has recovered because the tests are so sensitive.

"That's one possible and very strong explanation," he said.

The same theory was posited by one of China's top respiratory experts, Zhong Nanshan. In a press conference earlier this week, he said that a recovered person can test positive because fragments of the disease remained in their body.

"I'm not too worried about this issue," he added.