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Patients were found to have the highest virus concentrations early in their illness, while “live” viruses could be detected up to the ninth day after symptoms began, the researchers wrote in the British scientific journal Lancet Microbe.
The study authors analyzed 79 studies that included cases of symptomatic patients treated with coronavirus, treated in hospital. From the onset of symptoms to day nine, reproducible viruses were identified from individual throat samples.
Most of the RNA particles found in the samples, that is, fragments of the viral hereditary material, were present at the onset of symptoms or within five days. Inactive RNA fragments were detectable in nasal and throat samples on average even 17 days after the onset of symptoms.
The researchers concluded that because there was no virus capable of replicating in the samples for more than nine days, most patients were unlikely to become infected after the ninth day, despite the additional inactive fragments.
“People should be aware that as soon as they feel the mildest symptoms, they do not come into contact with others, they isolate themselves. Some people get their test results so late that they may have passed the most contagious period,” he told the BBC. Muge Cevik, a scientist at the University of St. Andrews.
The research did not examine the asymptomatic infected, but the authors noted that other research has shown that some may have been infected even before the onset of symptoms and asymptomatically.
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