Researchers from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) looked at 285 survivors who tested positive after previous tests said they were negative.

None of the 790 people that the patients came into contact with were found to be infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

The team says the findings are a sign that some areas might be safer to reopen than previously believed.

Of the 790 people that about 285 're-infected' coronavirus patients came into contact with, none were found to be infected with the virus.


Pictured: People wearing face masks waiting to be tested in South Korea

Of the 790 people that about 285 're-infected' coronavirus patients came into contact with, none were found to be infected with the virus. Pictured: People wearing face masks wait to take a test for the new coronavirus at a testing facility in Incheon, South Korea, May 13
Researchers believe the patients were not re-infected but rather they they were shedding dead virus particles.

Researchers believe the patients were not re-infected but rather they they were shedding dead virus particles. Pictured: Staff at a COVID-19 testing center pass a mouth swab self test kit to a driver at a drive-up testing center in Los Angeles, California, May 14
Researchers also found that the virus samples collected from the patients who tested positive a second time couldn't be grown in lab cultures.

This suggests the patients were not re-infected but rather that they were shedding dead virus particles.

The results are welcome after health authorities in South Korea raised alarms last month upon dozens of recovered patients testing positive for the virus again.

As of Tuesday, more than 400 people have reconfirmed cases of the virus, according to the KCDC.

'We're putting more weight on the theory that dead virus fragments remain in a recovered patient's body, since we haven't seen evidence of infectivity,' Dr Ki Moran, a professor at the National Cancer Center Graduate School, told The Wall Street Journal.

Source://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8337241/People-test-positive-coronavirus-recovering-not-infectious-study-finds.html