Woman sheds coronavirus for 70 days without symptoms
A woman with COVID-19 in Washington state shed infectious virus particles for 70 days, meaning she was contagious during that entire time, despite never showing symptoms of the disease, according to a new report.
The 71-year-old woman had a type of leukemia, or cancer of the white blood cells, and so her immune system was weakened and less able to clear her body of the new coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2. Although researchers have suspected that people with weakened immune systems may shed the virus for longer than typical, there was little evidence of this happening, until now.
The findings contradict guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which say that immunocompromised people with COVID-19 are likely not infectious after 20 days.
The new findings suggest “long-term shedding of infectious virus may be a concern in certain immunocompromised patients,” the authors wrote in their paper, published Wednesday (Nov. 4) in the journal Cell.
“As this virus continues to spread, more people with a range of immunosuppressing disorders will become infected, and it’s important to understand how SARS-CoV-2 behaves in these populations,” study senior author Vincent Munster, a virologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement.
The woman was infected in late February during the country’s first reported COVID-19 outbreak, which occurred at the Life Care Center rehabilitation facility in Kirkland, Washington, where she was a patient.
She was hospitalized for anemia related to her cancer on Feb. 25, and doctors screened her for COVID-19 because she came from the center with the outbreak. She tested positive on March 2.
Over the next 15 weeks, the woman would be tested for COVID-19 more than a dozen times. The virus was detected in her upper respiratory tract for 105 days; and infectious virus particles — meaning they were capable of spreading the disease — were detected for at least 70 days. Specifically, the researchers were able to isolate the virus from the patient’s samples, and grow it in a lab. They were even able to capture images of the virus using scanning and transmission electron microscopy.
Typically, people with COVID-19 are contagious for about eight days after infection, according to the report. Previously, the longest duration of infectious virus shedding in a COVID-19 patient was reported to be 20 days.
The woman was likely contagious for so long because her body didn’t mount a proper immune response. Indeed, the woman’s blood samples did not appear to contain antibodies against the virus.
The woman was treated with two rounds of convalescent plasma, or blood from recovered COVID-19 patients that contains antibodies against the disease. She cleared the infection after her second treatment, though there’s no way to know if the convalescent plasma helped, as the woman still had low concentrations of antibodies after the transfusion.
The authors also performed genetic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 over the course of the woman’s infection, and saw that the virus developed several mutations over time. However, the mutations did not affect how fast the virus replicated. In addition, the authors did not see evidence that any of these mutations gave the virus a survival advantage, because none of the mutated variants became dominant over the course of the infection.
Exactly how the woman cleared the virus is unknown and is something that should be examined in future research involving patients with weakened immune systems, the authors said.
In addition, the researchers don’t know why the woman never experienced symptoms of COVID-19 despite being immunocompromised, which puts her at higher risk of severe disease, according to the CDC.
“You would indeed think that the immunocompromised status would allow the virus to spread from the upper (more common cold scenario) to the lower respiratory tract (pneumonia),” Munster told Live Science in an email. “Even though the patient was at least infected for 105 days, this clearly didn’t happen, and this remains a mystery to us.”
The authors note that their study involved only a single case, and so the findings may not necessarily apply to all patients with conditions that suppress the immune system.
An estimated 3 million people in the U.S. have an immunocompromising condition, including people with HIV, as well as those who have received stem-cell transplants, organ transplants and chemotherapy, the authors said.
“Understanding the mechanism of virus persistence and eventual clearance [in immunocompromised patients] will be essential to providing appropriate treatment and preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2,” the authors concluded.
Read more at www.livescience.com
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Peter F Gill
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The article states: “The authors also performed genetic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 over the course of the woman’s infection” Other PSI state that there is no evidence of anyone so doing. Am I missing something here or was the statement limited to the UK?
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Charles Higley
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When you have a PCR test that is 85 to 100% false positives, her tests are meaningless. In addition, as the test is nonspecific for a single virus, she could have contracted a series of viruses over that time. And she had no symptoms. How about false positives, folks? When it makes no sense, you have to start questioning the test itself. It is clear that besides a lack of specificity, if the PCR test is cycled above 35 cycles, it starts becoming meaningless as well, per Dr. Fauci.
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Jacques
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“shed infectious virus particles for 70 days, meaning she was contagious”
No SARS-CoV-2 virus has been isolated, and for inherent reasons, it has been not proven that such non-isolated virus would cause the alleged disease COVID-19. Hence, stating that some woman shed virus particles is in the realm of the delusional. She could, and probably was, shedding stuff naturally occurring in the body.
To determine that she was contagious, it would have to be proved that whatever she was shedding causes a disease in other people. Since the alleged coronavirus hasn’t been proved to cause anything, neither could have been some particles of who knows what. She WAS NOT contagious.
Incidentally, every person carries numerous pathogens and it doesn’t mean that everybody is contagious. Well, it does in a way. But that’s the fucking way it is! The problem is not the carrier, the problem is largely the recipient, i.e. the terrain.
The bit that the woman has leukemia and her immunity is compromised is a cherry on top of the cake. Isn’t this “deadly” virus supposed to be killing the vulnerable, of which a person suffering from cancer is an example par excellence? And she had no symptoms while being full of the virus for months?
Give me a break. What a bunch of crock!
Time to stop worrying about the virus and start paying attention to the revolution that’s happening behind our backs.
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Tom O
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Shame on Rachel Rettner for putting her name on a piece of bullshine that is rife with idiot statements. Jacques and I chose the same one that stands out –
“shed infectious virus particles for 70 days, meaning she was contagious”
Since “particles” are not the virus, but would be, at best, pieces from a dead virus cell, they cannot be “infectious” in any manner. You can’t get a disease from a piece of it since a piece of it can’t replicate. The rest of this garbage isn’t even worth discussing. I sure hope that the name used for the author of this was just a “throw-a-way nom de plume” and not their real one.
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Monty
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I wonder if the particles were dead viruses and spreaded to others, could act as a vaccination to others. Just a thought.
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tom0mason
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Ah-ha!
But your mask and the many lockdown isolations should protect you from inhaling those (probably beneficial) particles. Nature has its methods 🙂
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Brian James
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Nov 9, 2020 The Covid Cult | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
This is the greatest public health fiasco in the history of the world, and the media has distorted it so badly, that much of the general public is celebrating villains and hissing at heroes. And, even — perversely enough — celebrating the destruction of their own lives and their children’s lives.
https://youtu.be/mcm8Sc8f66o
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