“Why have I tested positive for COVID for so long?”
I tested positive from 08/7/20 to 10/8/20, why so long? Why have I tested positive for COVID for so long?
Female | 32 years old
2 Answers
InfectiousDiseaseSpecialistInfectiousDiseaseSpecialist
Many people test positive for weeks or months after the infection. The test picks up the viral nuclear material long after the virus can no longer invade or multiply.
Some tests may pick up viral RNA fragments which are non-infective, but at the moment we cannot state tha a patient is not contagious based only on clinical data and consider still infectious until two negative swabs were obtained.
