What do the researchers advise in light of their findings?
“If you had mild respiratory symptoms from COVID-19 and were staying at home so as not to infect people, extend your quarantine for another two weeks after recovery to ensure that you don’t infect other people,” recommended corresponding author Lixin Xie, MD, professor, College of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing.
The researchers also had an important message for the medical community: “COVID-19 patients can be infectious even after their symptomatic recovery, so treat the asymptomatic/recently recovered patients as carefully as symptomatic patients.”
The researchers also acknowledged that all of these patients had milder infections and recovered from the disease, and that the study looked at a small number of patients.
They also noted that it is unclear whether similar results would be consistent for more vulnerable patients such as the elderly, those with suppressed immune systems and patients on immunosuppressive therapies.
