Coronavirus Symptoms Reoccur in 91 of South Korea’s Recovered Patients

• South Korean health officials announced this week that the virus of at least 91 recovered coronavirus patients has been “reactivated.”
• The new trend, they said, remains unclear, and that epidemiological investigations are still on going.
• It is also unclear if the recovered COVID-19 patients are already immune from contracting the virus again.

According to health officials South Korea, 91 patients who already recovered from coronavirus had their virus “reactivated.” In a press briefing, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) director Jeong Eun-kyeong said that the recovered patients tested positive again. It is possible that they have not been “re-infected” but the virus has reoccurred or “reactivated,” said the official.

Jeong explained the reactivation of COVID-19 remains a mystery as the epidemiological investigations are still ongoing. Furthermore, the director said that these reports are a concern, especially since most countries are hoping that the infected people will develop enough immunity to prevent further spread of the pandemic.

Korea University Guro Hospital on infectious diseases professor Kim Woo-joo said that the South Korean government is expecting the figure of reactivated virus will increase, given there are already 7,000 who have recovered from the disease.

Aside from the possibilities of reactivation, Kim said that the patients had likely experienced a “relapse” rather than being “re-infected.” He also said that the “false test result” can also be attributed as to why they have been tested positive again.

“There are different interpretations and many variables. The government needs to come up with responses for each of these variables,” Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital on pulmonary medicine professor Jung Ki-suck explained.

South Korea’s latest figure was 27 new cases of coronavirus, the country’s lowest incident compared to its previous 900 cases a day last late February. As of this writing, the country has now a total of 10,450 cases with a fatality of 211.

The city of Dauegu has the largest confirmed COVID-19 cases and according to reports, the figures rapidly increased due to a cult with a membership of about 3,000.