Recovered patient tests positive
Stuff reporter Tom Kitchin had officially recovered from Covid-19 – until his symptoms returned.
I thought I had recovered from coronavirus. I had battled it for nearly three weeks and my symptoms had finally gone.
But it wasn’t to be. The virus was still in my system.
This makes me wonder – are New Zealand authorities strict enough on determining when a patient has ‘‘recovered’’ and is safe to come out of quarantine?
I was diagnosed with Covid-19 on March 29, five days after first developing symptoms. I officially recovered 14 days later – all I had to do was not have any symptoms for 48 hours. I could leave isolation, I was free.
The day I was deemed recovered, a minor sore throat bothered me in the morning. I thought nothing of it, as I’d had no symptoms for the past two days. Before the virus, I often had sore throats that disappeared as the day went on.
But this sore throat kept plaguing me. I went for a quick walk, keeping a careful distance from passers-by. I picked up my bags for a supermarket trip. But as I walked out the door, my sore throat returned so I didn’t go.
The next morning I woke up and still had a sore throat. There was also the odd cough, which I hadn’t had in a few days.
I was worried. I needed to know – was this still Covid-19 or did I have a minor cold?
I called Healthline. There was no waiting on the line this time – the call-taker answered immediately. They said a recovered case with minor symptoms could be re-tested and gave me the number of the local testing clinic.
Within half an hour I was at the clinic for my swab. I was impressed with the quick process.
As with the first test, I was doubting it would again be Covid-19. Surely this time it was just minor cold symptoms? The virus couldn’t have returned?
But it had, or it never went away. Within 48 hours I had another positive test result.
Now I’m in for round two. I have to be in isolation until Wednesday –10 days from when the symptoms reappeared.
I’ll only be allowed out if I don’t have symptoms for 48 hours prior.
At the moment, there’s a tickle in the back of my throat. That’s all I have, but I could still very well have the virus.
I wonder if this happened to anyone else who has officially recovered? If so, do we need to be more rigorous before we declare someone recovered? Is 48 hours symptom-free long enough, or should we be re-testing people before they’re allowed out of selfisolation? All I had was a call to ask if I had any symptoms. It was based on my own judgement.
How can we rely on only the patient’s word to determine if they’ve recovered? I know I had a real desire to get out of isolation – could this be affecting the judgment of people who are recovering from coronavirus?
What can we do to make sure we know people with Covid-19 have actually recovered?
That’s something I cannot and should not answer. I’m sharing my experience so those at the top can make the right decisions.