It is normal for people to test positive again, but it is due to bits of dead virus coming out, not because they are reinfected.
I think it is obvious why they are reporting symptoms like headaches, even if they don't have symptoms they will want to get back off the ship:
That mask is going to get pretty nasty by the end of the cruise, and possibly lead to bacterial infections in the throat and lungs. Maybe that is the cause of the TB?
As I've observed and commented on in a few previous posts you have a peculiar habit of ignoring the flaws in your arguments I point out and then simply move the goal posts or change the subject.
So, I see here you've decided to double down and outright make stuff up!
You insult the sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt making the false claim that they are reporting headaches "
even if they don't have symptoms" because they want to get off the ship, yet it is well documented that the sailors were reporting a range of "flu-like" COVID symptoms including fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and nausea and unique COVID symptoms like loss of the ability to taste and smell. As for your habit of ignoring the facts and moving the goal posts, you conveniently skip over the facts that all of these sailors reporting their symptoms have
again tested positive for COVID-19 after previously recovering from the disease and testing negative on multiple occasions.
Then you make the completely false and erroneous claim that it is "
normal for people to test positive again, but it is due to bits of dead virus".
Recovered coronavirus patients from China, Italy, Japan, South Korea and the US have tested positive again after being discharged from the hospital. Significantly, most of these patients have become
sickened again reporting fevers, coughing and all the other typical COVID symptoms. This is in fact the reason they were re-tested. People "might" conceivably test positive again from
"dead virus bits" but they don't get sick
again if that is the case. One COVID-19 patient who re-tested positive was a 36-year-old man from Wuhan who died five days later of respiratory tract obstruction and respiratory failure, after being declared fully recovered and released from the hospital.
There is intense debate amomg professionals about what is happening here and there are two competing theories. One theory postulates a reactivation of the virus whereas the other theory is a resurgence of the virus.
"
A coronavirus infection’s going into a “dormant” stage and then re-emerging was another possibility for explaining the appearance of reinfection suggested by Dr. Philip M. Tierno, Clinical Professor of Microbiology and Pathology at at New York University: “Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant with minimal symptoms. And then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs.”
Lokesh Sharma, instructor of medicine in the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep at Yale School of Medicine, said in a statement: "The most significant finding from our study is that half of the patients kept shedding the virus even after resolution of their symptoms. More severe infections have longer shedding times. This warrants us to investigate the 'shedding window' after the clinical recovery of the patient."
"Dr. Benjamin Neuman, a virologist and the head of the biology department at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, believes it’s not so much a reactivation of the virus as it is a resurgence. Neuman thinks people are probably “being discharged with some virus still in them, and then the disease returns.”
Coronaviruses are generally not known to enter into an inactive phase and go dormant in the human body and then later reactivate like other virus strains such as Herpes, so that theory appears less likely but has not been discounted at this point. It is thought more likely that active virus is still extant in the bodies of people who have seemingly recovered from the disease as Dr. Neuman speculates.
Recent findings in Hong Kong and South Korea have found coronavirus in the lower respiratory tract, intestines and other organs long after recovering from COVID-19 yet repeatedly these patients test negative in their nasal passages and upper respiratory tracts at the same time. The result is that it is now being recommended that recovered patients should receive fecal swab testing before they can actually be declared healthy and discharged from hospitals.
In regard to these reports, as with the
novel SARS-CoV-2 in general, everywhere you look, virology professionals are saying,
"we need more data", "we need further research", "we need further observation", "we just don't know yet," etc.
And then there's you Nigel, who from the beginning of this thread makes one definitive blanket statement after another about how this disease functions in human populations as if you have it ALL figured out, knowing literally everything there is to know even about this new and unique disease when the true experts readily admit they still have much to learn about this, as yet poorly understood new virus strain which is behaving in so many unexpected ways.
As I've asked previously, how can it be possible that you make such definitive knowing pronouncements on all things COVID when the actual medical professionals, virologists and microbiologists readily admit that they do not yet fully understand their findings and say that further research is required. Well, we all know the answer to this question, don't we.
www.reuters.com
