In a new study from Intermountain Healthcare, researchers found that for every 10,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, there are approximately 4.3 recurrent cases.
In the study, the team used clinical assessment and laboratory data to assess the incidence of a recurrent positive COVID-19 test results 60 days after an initial positive test.
The analysis included 23,176 patients with an initial positive test for SARS-CoV-2 between March 11 and July 31, 2020.
The researchers found that 1,301 patients (5.6%) initially testing positive had at least one additional SARS-CoV-2 test 60 or more days later.
Among 122 patients who tested positive, 114 had sufficient data for evaluation, which showed a median interval to the recurrent positive test of 85.5 days.
Overall, four of 122 patients met the criteria for probable COVID-19 recurrence when combining clinical and RT-PCR cycle threshold data.
At recurrence, all four patients exhibited symptoms and three required a higher level of medical care compared with their initial diagnosis.
Six additional patients had a possible recurrence. Combining probable and possible recurrences yielded a recurrence incidence of 4.3 cases per 10,000 COVID-19 patients.
The team says scientists urgently need to understand the epidemiology of recurrence.
They hope that our method will be helpful as a framework for categorizing potential recurrence cases as the number of recovered COVID-19 patients rises, immunity wanes, variants spread, and more reinfection cases occur.
If you care about COVID-19, please read studies about long-lasting immunity after mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 infection and findings of this health problem is the leading risk factor for COVID-19 hospitalization.
For more information about COVID-19 prevention and treatment, please see recent studies about these people 7 times as likely to have severe COVID-19 and results showing the biggest risk factors for COVID-19 death.
The study is published in PLOS ONE. One author of the study is Ithan D. Peltan, M.D.
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