Persistence of Positive SARS‐CoV‐2 RT‐PCR Test Result for 24 Days in a Hospitalized Asymptomatic Carrier

Uechi, Takahiro; Nakamura, Shunsuke; Takeshita, Ryo; Morino, Kyoko; Mizuno, Ren; Nakagawa, Yuki; Irifukuhama, Yuna; Takada, Shiho; Teruya, Hideki; Mita, Naoto; Nakamori, Tomoki; Kinoshita, Hirohisa

BACKGROUND: Several countries imposed a mandatory 14‐day period of quarantine on individuals arriving from countries considered high‐risk for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) infection. However, it is not clear how long asymptomatic patients infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 can be an asymptomatic carrier. CASE PRESENTATION: We experienced a case of an asymptomatic female patient infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 with abnormal chest CT findings. She did not develop a fever during hospitalized isolation. She remained reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) positive for 24 days. CONCLUSION: An asymptomatic patient diagnosed with SARS‐CoV‐2 infection remained RT‐PCR positive for 24 days although she was quarantined in an isolation hospital. This finding suggests that an asymptomatic patient diagnosed with SARS‐CoV‐2 infection with abnormal chest CT findings can be an asymptomatic carrier for greater than 3 weeks.