"No Infectivity in Repositive Cases After Full Recovery"…Management System Changes Starting Tomorrow (Update)

Citizens who visited the screening clinic set up at Yongsan-gu Public Health Center in Seoul are lining up to get tested. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] The government announced that among confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), those who tested positive again after being declared recovered are considered to have no infectiousness. Accordingly, the term "re-positive" will be eliminated, and the management system equivalent to that for confirmed patients will no longer be applied.

According to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH) on the 18th, the government and health authorities investigated contacts of re-positive cases and found no new infections caused solely by contact during the re-positive period. All virus culture tests on respiratory specimens from re-positive individuals returned negative results.

The CDSCH explained, "This means that active monitoring, epidemiological investigations, and virological tests of re-positive individuals and their contacts have not found evidence that re-positive individuals are infectious." As of the 15th, the government and health authorities have identified a total of 447 re-positive cases.

Accordingly, the CDSCH decided to discontinue the current management measures for re-positive individuals equivalent to confirmed patients and the post-isolation management of confirmed patients starting from 0:00 on the 19th. This decision will be applied retroactively to those currently under post-isolation management and existing isolated individuals. They also requested that workplaces, schools, and other institutions no longer require a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result for return after isolation release.

The health authorities will also change the term "re-positive" to "PCR re-detection after isolation release." Reporting, case investigations, and contact tracing related to re-positive cases will continue as before.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.