Foreign Affairs

Korean CDC Says Coronavirus May ‘Reactivate’ In Cured Patients

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The Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said coronavirus could potentially “reactivate” in patients who have been deemed fully recovered.

Around 51 people in South Korea who were classified as being cured of coronavirus tested positive for the virus again, the Korean CDC announced Monday in a briefing, according to Bloomberg. Director General of the Korean CDC Jeong Eun-kyeong said the virus might have been reactivated in these patients, as opposed to the patients becoming infected again, since they tested positive soon after being released from quarantine.

Patients are deemed fully recovered after they test negative for coronavirus twice within a  24-hour interval, Bloomberg reported.

“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.”

The Korean CDC director general noted that the Korean CDC will conduct an epidemiological probe into these cases.

White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci also discussed the Korean CDC’s announcement at a Thursday briefing, saying we must be “very careful” when discussing reinfection and adding that he needed to look at the data on the Korean cases of possible reinfection before he discussed it.

“If someone clearly is ill and they have the virus isolated from them, you may have a prolonged course,” Fauci said. “I’d like to see how long they reactivate. I mean, if they were sick and had documented virus and then three months later they had documented virus, is that reactivation or is that infection with another virus?”

“I’d like to see the data before really I comment on that,” he added.