A new study shows that COVID-19 patients begin to infect others two days after infection and stop doing so 11 days after falling ill from the virus.
The Herald can report that the study was conducted by researchers from Singapore’s National Centre for Infectious Diseases and the Academy of Medicine. The researchers examined 73 patients that tested positive for coronavirus.
The study found that the infected individual becomes contagious two days after contracting the virus even though they may be asymptomatic.
However, the scientists said that the patient stops being contagious after 11 days of falling ill, even if they still test positive for the deadly virus.
The research could help health officials decongest isolation centres as patients may be released early from the centres without posing a health risk to uninfected persons.
“Based on the accumulated data since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the infectious period of coronavirus in symptomatic individuals may begin around two days before the onset of symptoms, and persist for about seven to 10 days after the onset of symptoms,” New York Post quoted the study’s authors as saying.
According to them, active viral replication drops quickly after the first week, and the viable virus was not found after the second week of illness.
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