South Korea's health officials said Thursday that the recovered COVID-19 patients are testing positive again not because they are reinfected or the virus was reactivated but because of "dead fragments of the virus" left inside the lungs. It is to be recalled that the country alarmed the world when it found that 263 recovered patients tested again for the novel coronavirus. The positive results came up even after weeks of their full recoveries.
Oh Myoung-don, a doctor at the Seoul National University, said his team found little evidence that those who tested positive again were reinfected. He explained that tests detected the ribonucleic acid of the dead virus. The confusion on whether the patients where reinfected again is because the polymerase chain reaction cannot determine whether the virus is alive or dead, resulting in false positives.
South Korea is being praised around the world for its fast and effective steps in combating the virus. As of Thursday, the country reported no local transmissions of the coronavirus. This was the only time that there was no local transmission in the past two months that South Korea has been battling the virus.
The country reported four new cases of COVID-19 but all were people with travel history. As of Thursday, the country's total cases are at 10,765 and deaths to 247. The numbers are low considering that South Korea was among the first nations to report cases.
Also, the slow rate through which the virus spread is particularly impressive given that South Korea proceeded with its elections in April. At the time, voters were only required to wear masks and gloves to cast ballots.
With all positive developments in the country, UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres praised South Korea for its successful fight against the outbreak. What was more impressive is that the country even has laid out plans of a post-pandemic country. All this while still at the heels of fighting climate change. Guterres said South Korea has proven to be a "remarkable example" of how two things - COVID-19 and climate change - can be put together.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus which was detected in December 2019 has already infected a total of 3,257,996 people around the world. The United States is reporting the highest number of confirmed cases at 1,070,026.
Next to the US are European countries with Spain having 213,435 confirmed cases, Italy with 205,463, the United Kingdom with 172,481, France with 167,299, and Germany with 163,009 as of Thursday night.
COVID-19 has also killed 233,429 people globally. The US recorded the largest number of deaths at 63,019. New York City accounted for more than 18,000 of that number.
Out of US, Italy has the highest number of deaths at 27,967, followed by the UK with 26,771 deaths, Spain with 24,543, and France with 24,376.
