ONE more asymptomatic COVID-19 case was reported in Shenzhen on Tuesday, bringing the total number of asymptomatic cases under medical observation in Shenzhen to 15. The patient had returned to Shenzhen from Hubei Province. The same day, the city reported one new domestic case, from a person who had also recently returned to Shenzhen from Hubei Province. As of Tuesday, the city had confirmed 451 new COVID-19 cases. Of them, 221 are male and 230 are female. In another development, medical experts from the Shenzhen No. 3 People’s Hospital recently suggested that under their observation, recovered COVID-19 patients who have tested positive again pose no contagious threat to healthy people. The finding, titled “Clinical characteristics of the recovered COVID-19 patients with re-detectable positive RNA test,” was published Tuesday to MedRxiv, the preprint server for health sciences. The research results also showed that young (under the age of 14) and mild COVID-19 patients seem to be more likely to test positive after being discharged from the hospital, as opposed to patients of more severe cases. Furthermore, having a history of travel or living in Hubei Province, where the virus first emerged in China, did not show a higher incidence of patients becoming re-detectable positive (RP). The research team collected data from a total of 262 recovered COVID-19 patients who had been given follow-up observation for at least 14 days. As of March 10, 38 of them had tested positive again. However, 21 close contacts of these RP patients all tested negative for the virus and have not developed suspicious clinical symptoms. Finally, the report indicates all RP patients have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood serum, suggesting no infectivity of these patients. It is reported that the team is expanding the scope of samples to observe infectivity of related cases. Although no reasons for the re-detectable positive RNA test have been found yet, the research team theorizes that it might be because the viral nucleic acid has not been cleared up within the infected patients’ body. All recovered COVID-19 patients in Guangdong Province are required to be under observation for 14 days after being discharged from the hospital. (Wang Jingli) |