This week in South Korea, more than 116 people previously cleared of COVID-19 tested positive again. These people had been infected and recovered testing negative, but then somehow retesting shows the virus is in their system. This rise in “reactivated” patients could complicate easing lockdown requirements.
This is concerning for public health because all over the world, people assume that once a person has recovered from coronavirus, they can go out and resume their normal lives around others. Furthermore, officials in the country have been suggesting easing the strict restrictions aimed at preventing new outbreaks because the number of cases has been decreasing day by day. On April 14th, they reported 25 new cases when last week, the figure was 51.
Medical experts are still investigating the cause of the apparent relapses with reasons ranging from faulty tests to remnants of the virus still being in the patients’ systems. It seems that if the virus is still in the patient’s body, that the virus is not infectious or dangerous to the host or others. According to the director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), Jeong Eun-kyeong, the virus may have reactivated itself rather than the person being re-infected.
However, despite the reinfections, government officials are planning to ease restrictions soon. Although, for now, citizens are to continue following guidelines and social-distancing measures restricting social gatherings – at least until April 19th, maybe longer.
Prime minister Chung Sye-kyun said during a disaster management meeting:
Later this week, we plan to review our intensive social distancing campaign that we have carried out so far and discuss whether we will switch to routine safety measures.
We need a very cautious approach because any premature easing of social distancing could bring irreversible consequences, and have to ponder deeply about when and how we switch to the new system.
South Korea executed one of the fastest and most effective national responses to the outbreak in the world. Right away, it started testing people for the deadly virus by the hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile, other countries like the U.S. were still only trying to get a hold of testing kits that worked. Now, upon a request from U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korea will be covering the U.S.’s shortcomings by sending over 600,000 coronavirus test kits this week.
And while it has been successful in getting the outbreak under control, the government is hesitant about easing restrictions too quickly. Chung says that even when they do lift them, the country won’t return to life as it was before for a long time.
