Immunity theory gets new boost

Nearly 300 recovered coronavirus patients who tested positive a second time didn’t infect any other people, South Korean health officials report.

The preliminary findings — released Monday by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — give a boost to the notion that those infected with COVID-19 develop immunity to the disease.

The officials monitored 285 patients who had recovered only to test positive again — and found that none of the 790 people they came into contact with was infected with the disease.

As a result, South Korea lifted a 14-day quarantine requirement for discharged patients, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The country also swapped out the term “relapse” for “redetected” in describing people who tested positive for a second time.

“So far, we have not seen secondary infections from people who were in contact with the relapsed patients,” Yoon Tae-ho, a senior Health Ministry official, said Monday.

South Korea has had more than 11,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

More than 470 recovered patients have tested positive a second time after being discharged — and health officials have questioned whether the virus may have just been reactivated, as opposed to the patients being reinfected.

Officials say the tests may just be picking up dead virus fragments.

“We’re putting more weight on the theory that dead virus fragments remain in a recovered patient’s body, since we haven’t seen evidence of infectivity,” Ki Moran, a professor at the National Cancer Center, told the Journal.

Some COVID-19 sufferers have tested positive again up to 82 days after first becoming infected, according to Bloomberg News.