In South Korea, health officials are trying to solve a mystery: why 163 people who recovered from coronavirus have retested positive. 9News
"Covid-19 is the most challenging pathogen we may have faced in recent decades," Kwon said. "It is a very difficult and challenging enemy."For now, the most likely explanation of why people are retesting positive seems to be that the test is picking up remnants of the virus.
Like many countries, South Korea uses a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction to test for the virus. The RT-PCR test works by finding evidence of a virus's genetic information -- or RNA -- in a sample taken from the patient. If there's an error with the test, patients may be getting false negatives or false positives. There are a number of reasons why this could happen, including issues with the chemicals used in the test and the possibility that the virus is mutating in such a way that it is not being identified by the test.
A medical worker tests a young man for COVID-19 at a Children's National Hospital drive-through coronavirus testing site at Trinity University, Thursday, April 16, 2020, in Washington. . Antibodies are important because they can prevent a person from being reinfected with the same virus, as the body already knows how to fight the disease.
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