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**Hugh** · 01-05-2020, 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveeb

You probably can't catch it twice within a month or two. We have no idea yet what happens 6 months or a year down the line. Any immunity may be temporary.

I posted this a couple of days ago, which gives more detail.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/126675...ns-experts-say

Quote:

Tests in recovered patients in S. Korea found false positives, not reinfections, experts say

SEOUL — South Korea’s infectious disease experts said Thursday that dead virus fragments were the likely cause of over 260 people here testing positive again for the novel coronavirus days and even weeks after marking full recoveries.

Oh Myoung-don, who leads the central clinical committee for emerging disease control, said the committee members found little reason to believe that those cases could be COVID-19 reinfections or reactivations, which would have made global efforts to contain the virus much more daunting.

The tests detected the ribonucleic acid of the dead virus,” said Oh, a Seoul National University hospital doctor, at a press conference Thursday held at the National Medical Center.

He went on to explain that in PCR tests, or polymerase chain reaction tests, used for COVID-19 diagnosis, genetic materials of the virus amplify during testing, whether it is from a live virus or just from fragments of dead virus cells that can take months to clear from recovered patients.

The PCR tests cannot distinguish whether the virus is alive or dead, he added, and this can lead to false positives.

“PCR testing that amplifies genetics of the virus is used in Korea to test COVID-19, and relapse cases are due to technical limits of the PCR testing.”