Scientists conclude you can’t catch coronavirus twice

New reports from scientists have concluded you can’t catch Coronavirus again if you have already been infected with the virus. 

Many experts had feared that patients could suffer from the virus twice, with as many as 10% of recovered coronavirus patients in China testing positive again after being discharged from the hospital.

However, new evidence from scientists based in South Korea has concluded that Covid-19 patients cannot relapse after recovering from the disease, Sky News reports.

The scientists have blamed faulty tests for the second positives in the cases in China. 

This new report comes just four days after the World Health Organisation stated: “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection” – demonstrating how quickly the research behind coronavirus is happening.  

Since this report, South Korea’s central clinical committee stated that the cases of reinfection were returned false positives. 

This development should alleviate concerns that humans are unable to develop long-term immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that causes Covid-19.

At a press conference on Wednesday April 29th, Dr Oh, a Seoul National University hospital doctor, said: “The tests detected the ribonucleic acid of the dead virus”. 

He further explained that the limits of the test meant that the test itself could not distinguish whether the virus it detected in people’s bodies was dead or alive, therefore it resulted in false positives. 

Fragments of the virus can still be detected in the human body for up to two months, even after a patient has recovered from coronavirus, Dr Oh added.

The committee, therefore, concluded that there was little to no possibility that reinfections would occur due to the patients developing antibodies.