The coronavirus faces an unexpected problem: Veryga very surprised did not know before

Although the symptoms of the disease disappeared for him in less than a week, Justin was forced to close home alone for a long time because repeated tests also came back positive.

So far, a person is considered to have recovered if, 14 days after illness, the retest result is negative. If the second test was also positive, self-isolation had to be prolonged.

The “new” data was published 4.5 months later.

Only this Thursday, the Deputy Minister of Health, Kristina Garuolienė, announced that in the near future it is planned to change the criteria based on which people are considered recovered from the coronavirus.

According to the deputy minister, a person who has recovered from a mild form of COVID-19 after 10 days from the onset of the disease will be considered recovered from the coronavirus. But this will have to be confirmed by the family or other doctors treating the patient.

“There will be no need to seek research; after some time after the onset of the disease, it will be possible to consider that a person is healthy and can return to normal life,” promised K. Garuolienė.

According to the deputy minister, the criteria are changed taking into account the recommendations of scientists and the practice of other countries.

Justin was surprised that it took up to 4.5 months for the Ministry of Health (SAM) to discover the “new” data on scientists that the World Health Organization (WHO) seems to have released a long time ago.

“On May 27, 2020, the WHO issued updated preliminary guidelines for the clinical management of COVID-19 and issued updated guidelines on patient discharge. The updated criteria reflects the new findings that patients who show no symptoms can test positive for the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) for many weeks on AT-PCR tests. Despite these positive results, it is unlikely that these patients are contagious, so it is unlikely that they can transmit the virus to others, ”according to a WHO website published on June 17. in the report.

This report states that the new criteria for exempting patients from isolation are:

• for symptomatic patients: 10 days after the onset of symptoms, plus at least three additional days without symptoms (ie, no fever and no symptoms of respiratory illness);
• in asymptomatic cases: 10 days after a positive SARS-CoV-2 test.

This is what Justin discovered while in self-isolation, of which he has not yet been forgiven, although he feels completely healthy.

The symptoms disappeared quickly

The man experienced the first symptoms of the disease on September 24. He had a runny nose, sneezing, and a stuffy nose. On September 27, when the first COVID-19 test was performed, his sense of smell, a common sign of the coronavirus, disappeared. The test results were positive and the temperature rose to 37.8 degrees the next day.

“It was the peak of my illness,” Justin recalled, adding that a day later, on September 29, the temperature was only 37.1 degrees and on October 2 there were no cold symptoms. Only the sense of smell had not yet recovered.

The Vilnius resident does not know exactly where he could be infected.

“I was abroad. I stated that I had returned from Poland, so those who returned from there did not need to be quarantined. But I would not necessarily get infected on the trip because I was sitting alone on airplanes. I could have got infected when I returned to a little Maxima, because I came back on Monday and the symptoms started, apparently, on Thursday, “Justin recalled.

The man was more concerned about his mother. It was only that weekend that she was experiencing COVID-19 symptoms that she was visiting her son. It was for this reason that Justin rushed to perform the test. Fortunately, the mother’s test results were negative – even after spending time with her sick child, the woman was not infected.

Exactly 14 days after the first test, on October 11, Justin took the new test. The test results obtained the next day were disappointing: despite the absence of symptoms, they were positive again.

After such results, Justin wanted to do another control test, hoping that maybe an error would occur, but he couldn’t. He was instructed to try the test again only after another two weeks, on October 25, and until then he had to remain in isolation.

Test results can be misleading

The man told the story on Wednesday, before a change in self-isolation was announced. Under the then regimen, Justin should have spent at least 28 days in self-isolation, although he had no symptoms of coronavirus and, as has been shown, those who are asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms quickly become non-infectious. This was confirmed to journalists by the Minister of Health, Aurelijus Veryga, on Monday.

“Scientists’ conclusions have been presented and there are really such optimistic things. People who have even been infected, but have mild symptoms, do not get infected soon enough, ”A. Veryga said Monday.

Still, only on Thursday was a change reported in the order in which a person is already considered healthy. Until then, Justin had to sit in a closed house.

“I work individually. I’m lucky, I have income, but if I could go out to freedom, I could have more because I can’t do everything from home. Unfortunately, I cannot receive the disability benefit, ”said the Vilnius resident.