Recurrence of positive SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in recovered COVID-19 patients during medical isolation observation

Yuan, Bo; Liu, Han-Qing; Yang, Zheng-Rong; Chen, Yong-Xin; Liu, Zhi-Yong; Zhang, Kai; Wang, Cheng; Li, Wei-Xin; An, Ya-Wen; Wang, Jian-Chun; Song, Shuo

Recently, the recurrence of positive SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in recovered COVID-19 patients is receiving more attention. Herein we report a cohort study on the follow-up of 182 recovered patients under medical isolation observation. Twenty (10.99%) patients out of the 182 were detected to be SARS-CoV-2 RNA positive (re-positives), although none showed any clinical symptomatic recurrence, indicating that COVID-19 responds well to treatment. Patients aged under 18 years had higher re-positive rates than average, and none of the severely ill patients re-tested positive. There were no significant differences in sex between re-positives and non-re-positives. Notably, most of the re-positives turned negative in the following tests, and all of them carried antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. This indicates that they might not be infectious, although it is still important to perform regular SARS-CoV-2 RNA testing and follow-up for assessment of infectivity. The findings of this study provide information for improving the management of recovered patients, and for differentiating the follow-up of recovered patients with different risk levels.