Recurrent PCR positivity after hospital discharge of people with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Viral kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 over the preclinical, clinical, and postclinical period

“…Many COVID-19 patients were retested after discharge, confirmed re-positivity, and re-quarantined in Korea. [1] , [5] Until May 19, the Korean public health center conducted rRT-PCR tests again two weeks after COVID-19 patients are discharged to confirm re-positivity. Based on our study, there was a continuous pattern which showed negative and positive results for 6 weeks and longer, with Ct values of 33 or more persisting in COVID-19 discharged patients for 6 weeks and longer.…”

Can elevated concentrations of ALT and AST predict the risk of ‘recurrence’ of COVID-19?

“…It is also observed that some COVID-19 recovery cases may experience a fluctuating period between the relief of clinical symptoms or pulmonary imaging and real recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infections. Some studies have reported that the clinical features and the potential risk factors of SARS-CoV-2 turned positive in patients after they were discharged [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. The reported recurrence rate ranged from 9.09% to 21.43% [7,12,16].…”

The treatment and follow‐up of ‘recurrence’ with discharged COVID‐19 patients: data from Guizhou, China

“…Although there are no reports that they transmitted the virus to others, from a safety point of view, these discharged patients should be required to be isolated and monitored for more than 28 days. Although there have been some cases or case series which reported recurrence of positive SARS‐CoV‐2 RNA in COVID‐19 (Chen et al ., 2020; Jiang et al ., 2020; Li et al ., 2020; Peng et al ., 2020; Xing et al ., 2020; Ye et al ., 2020), to the best of our knowledge, this is the first observational study of long‐term follow‐up of so many ‘re‐positive’ patients, and we will continue to follow these patients.…”