Scientists Confirm Nevada Man was Infected Twice with Coronavirus -- First in USA
DeathMonkey writes:
Scientists Confirm Nevada Man Was Infected Twice With Coronavirus:
A 25-year-old was infected twice with the coronavirus earlier this year, scientists in Nevada have confirmed. It is the first confirmed case of so-called reinfection with the virus in the U.S. and the fifth confirmed reinfection case worldwide.
The cases underscore the importance of social distancing and wearing masks even if you were previously infected with the virus, and they raise questions about how the human immune system reacts to the virus.
The two infections in the Nevada patient occurred about six weeks apart, according to a case study published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet. The patient originally tested positive for the virus in April and had symptoms including a cough and nausea. He recovered and tested negative for the virus in May.
But at the end of May, he went to an urgent care center with symptoms including fever, cough and dizziness. In early June, he tested positive again and ended up in the hospital.
"The second infection was symptomatically more severe than the first," the authors of the study write. The patient survived his second bout with COVID-19.
[...] One of the biggest outstanding questions is how widespread reinfection might be. It's difficult to confirm cases in which a person is infected twice. Scientists must have the nasal swabs from both the first and second infection in order to compare the genomes of both virus samples.
Only the most advanced hospital and laboratory facilities have the equipment and personnel to do the genome sequencing and analyze the results. As a result, most cases of reinfection are likely going undetected.
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