According to recent guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who test positive for coronavirus, but who are not showing symptoms, can end their isolation after just five days.
The US Health Agency also recommends that people take a rapid antigen test at the end of the fifth day of isolation, and if the results are negative, people can end isolation immediately, however experts believe that there may be an opportunity to test positive for people late in infection.
Why do some people continue to test positive even after they recover?
Typically, people infected with COVID-19 continue to test positive for the virus for about six to 10 days, i.e. by taking a rapid test at home with RT PCR, it can be extended for a longer period.
According to infectious disease experts, many COVID-19 patients can test for the virus for weeks or even months, and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test looks for viral fragments in the body, even if a person recovers from the disease and has no symptoms, the test result can appear positive. Because the test can still detect the presence of viral particles in the body, however, it is unlikely for them to know whether the virus is active or whether the person is contagious.
Does a positive test weeks after infection mean you’re still contagious?
Experts believe that a positive result late in the infection does not mean that you are contagious.
If you continue to test positive for COVID-19 even after your symptoms have resolved and the isolation period has been completed, it may be due to many factors, while the lateral flow test is less sensitive to viral proteins called antigens, and therefore is unlikely to give a positive result after several Days after infection, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test can detect even a few viral fragments, since it is programmed to detect SARs-COV-2 viral genetic material.
However, a positive PCR test does not necessarily mean that you are contagious, and research suggests that most people will not be contagious 5 to 6 days after symptoms appear, and according to many studies, people are most infectious between 2 and 3 days before Onset of symptoms and 8 days after onset.
While PCR tests are highly accurate in detecting COVID-19, rapid antigen tests, which are said to detect high viral loads, are currently believed to be.