there is a strain in arizona that had mutated to be less dangerous. the virus defense mechanism against attack had lessened
Marcus Aurelius6:16p, 5/4/20AG
I have an elderly patient admitted for COVID-19. She has survived and is doing well. She is no longer symptomatic. She has had 8 positive COVID swabs!!!! And she has been in the hospital for 6 weeks. Her nursing home requires 2 consecutive negative swabs. So she languishes in the hospital, at risk for nosocomial infections, deconditioning, malnutrition, delirium, psychiatric illness, to name a few.
Have others experienced this? Is this inactive viral particles? And what to do for these people? Frustrating. I understand the nursing home’s policies but I really don’t think she’s infectious now.
txtomster3:18p
I work at a hospital in Houston . We have an employee that was positive in March . She only had a fever , no other symptoms . After 14 days she was tested and still showed positive , because she cannot come back to work until 2 negative tests. She continues to test positive and has not been able to return to work yet .
Ranger2228:59p, 5/4/20AG
The South Koreans have data that suggest remnants of the viral genome can last up to months. Sorry to hear about your case but I’m sure there will be many more like it.
Do you have any ideas what are the cycle numbers being returned for the qPCR test? You could make an argument if they are decreasing over time or are in the ~30s, right above the threshold for a “positive” result. If they had any data logged prior that cycles leading to positive were in 20s and now weeks later are in 30s, you could argue she has cleared (if they are willing to listen other than positive/negative result).