Comment by mrandish | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrandish | Hacker News Reader

Scientists agree reinfection is an unlikely explanation for patients who test positive a second time, according to the Los Angeles Times, and note the possibility that testing errors, and releasing patients from hospitals too prematurely, are more likely the reason for reports of patients who retest positive.

“If you get an infection, your immune system is revved up against that virus,” Keiji Fukuda, director of Hong Kong University’s School of Public Health, told the Los Angeles Times. “To get reinfected again when you’re in that situation would be quite unusual unless your immune system was not functioning right.” Fukuda told the paper that it’s more likely patients are being released from hospitals while carrying dormant fragments of the disease that are not infectious, but resemble the virus when tested. “The test may be positive, but the infection is not there,” he said.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...

The OP article says

> "No secondary infections have been reported from relapse cases, according to the KCDC."

By secondary infections, they are talking about pneumonia. Not a recurrence of symptoms.

In fact, the article points out that 61 of these cases did have symptoms. What exactly those symptoms were, I'd like to know. Also, I am wondering about the progression of the disease the second time around.

Korean doctors are able to speak for themselves and we should rely on the studies themselves to inform discussion, not hearsay from a third party source about “scientists agree” whatever the heck that means. What do the Korean doctors who are reporting the alleged reinfection think.

The linked article isn't a scientific study and doesn't refer to any studies. It just talks about relapses without explaining how they happen. So an explanation of how they're thought to happen seems entirely appropriate.

It’s most likely dead virus causing a false positive: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/health/south-korea-coronaviru...

> than just testing positive which could be attributed to testing errors

It's a direct quote from an attributed expert in the Los Angeles Times.

I wish they also talked about symptomatic vs just testing positive. Are there cases where someone got discharged after going through the 2-3 week cycle of symptoms, became free of symptoms and then got sick again ?

That's the more interesting case for me than just testing positive which could be attributed to testing errors

From the article: "Of the 137 cases that have clinical and epidemiological information, 61 showed symptoms again, the KCDC said."

> than just testing positive which could be attributed to testing errors

We know that these RT-PCR tests have about a 30% error rate and the errors are almost entirely false negatives, especially early and late in the infection. There's informed speculation that one of the reasons we're still unsure if kids get it less or just test out less because their immune systems fight it off so well that the load is more frequently under the 'positive' threshhold.

But it says they have symptoms again

Reply on news.ycombinator.com