Infectivity

Virology

Biology

Viral shedding

Sars virus

Coronavirus

Outbreak

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Medicine

Disease

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Internal medicine

Virus

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak

The Lancet

Fei Zhou and colleagues1Zhou F Yu T Du R et al.Clinical course and risk factors for mortality of adult inpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a retrospective cohort study.Lancet. 2020; 395: 1054-1062Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (18725) Google Scholar estimated mean duration of viral shedding by assessing the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral RNA in patient samples. Assessing potential infectivity is a labour-intensive process, but the presence of nucleic acid alone cannot be used to define viral shedding or infection potential, as the authors state is possible within their methods. For many viral diseases (SARS-CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, influenza virus, Ebola virus, and Zika virus) it is well known that viral RNA can be detected long after the disappearance of infectious virus.2Peiris JS Chu CM Cheng VC et al.Clinical progression and viral load in a community outbreak of coronavirus-associated SARS pneumonia: a prospecti...

SARS-CoV-2 shedding and infectivity