Stories Of People With COVID-19 In Wuhan Many Times Positive And Not Healed For Up To Two Months

Ilustrasi foto (Cheng Feng/Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Wuhan, the city that first had COVID-19 cases, is now starting to rise. The lockdown rule has been lifted since early April and the community has started to carry out activities as usual. However, that does not mean there are no COVID-19 patients.

Dressed in a hazmat suit, two masks and a face shield, a psychologist named Du Mingjun knocked on the door of an apartment in a suburban district of Wuhan City in the morning. A man wearing a mask opened the door slightly and after Du Mingjun introduced himself as a psychologist, the man burst into tears.

"I just can't take it anymore," said the man.

Reported by Reuters on Wednesday April 22, the man was diagnosed with COVID-19 in early February. He is in his 50s and previously treated in two hospitals until finally transferred to a quarantine center set up in an apartment in the industrial part of Wuhan. The man is still getting positive results every time he tests for COVID-19.

This incident is still a mystery that confuses doctors, even now that medical teams have succeeded in slowing the spread of COVID-19 throughout the country. The fate of patients in Wuhan who have suffered from COVID-19 for a very long time underscores how much remains unknown about COVID-19.

In addition, doctors still do not understand why the reaction from COVID-19 in each person is different. So far, globally, the number of COVID-19 cases has reached 2.5 million with more than 171,000 deaths.

Doctors in Wuhan also said there were increasing cases of people recovering from COVID-19 but coming back positive without showing symptoms. People who have contracted COVID-19 also dash hopes that people who have had COVID-19 will produce antibodies that prevent them from catching the virus again.

These events represent one of their biggest challenges as China moves into a new phase of fighting in containment of the second wave of the virus. It is likely that someone who continues to be positive for the virus test is still potentially contagious. Therefore this possibility should be of international concern.

This is because many countries are trying to end lockdown rules and resume economic activities as the spread of the virus slows down. Currently, the globally recommended isolation period after exposure is 14 days.

Photo illustration (Tedward Quinn / Unsplash)

Confusion

Zhao Yan, a doctor at Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan, said he was skeptical about the possibility of people re-infection with COVID-19 based on cases at the hospital where he practices, although he did not have solid evidence.

"They are closely monitored at the hospital and know the risks, so they remain in quarantine. So I am sure they are not re-infected, "he said.

Jeong Eun-kyeong, Director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the new coronavirus "returned to activity" in 91 patients in South Korea (South Korea) after being declared cured.

Other South Korean and Chinese experts say that remnants of the virus can remain in the recovered patient's body but are not contagious or harmful to the host or other people.