Overall, the length of time that the study participants shed potentially contagious virus particles was in the range of 5–16 days. Of these participants, 22 eventually developed symptoms, while nine never did. Researchers looked at 31 people hospitalized for other reasons who tested positive for COVID-19 but did not have any symptoms. If a person does not have symptoms but later develops them, they are pre-symptomatic before they experience the symptoms.Ī 2020 study found that both asymptomatic people and pre-symptomatic people can and do shed the virus and spread COVID-19. If a person has no symptoms, they are asymptomatic. In people without symptoms, determining contagiousness is difficult, as many people without symptoms may never know that they have COVID-19. Therefore, they may be most contagious shortly before and shortly after symptoms appear.įor this reason, people should ensure that they isolate immediately if they think that they may have come into contact with the virus or if they have developed symptoms. One 2021 review suggests that a person with COVID-19 is most contagious in the first week of illness. It’s also worth noting that infectiousness itself, both in the sense of how much someone will transmit the virus to others and how long they can do so, is highly variable. It is currently not clear whether the result would be the same for people with mild or asymptomatic disease. The 2021 study included immunocompromised people who may shed the virus for longer. However, the study only included people who were receiving treatment in a hospital for moderate to severe COVID-19. These results suggest that shedding may occur for longer than 2 weeks in some people with COVID-19. At 15.2 days, the odds of continuing to shed the virus were less than 5%. The median length of time that participants continued to shed the virus was 8 days after first developing symptoms. One 2021 study included 129 people hospitalized with COVID-19. However, symptoms typically appear within 4–5 days of exposure.ĭifferent variants of the virus appear to have different incubation periods, with Omicron having a shorter incubation period than the earlier Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants. Share on Pinterest Justin Paget/Getty ImagesĮxperts believe that the time from exposure to symptom onset, also known as the incubation period, is 2–14 days.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |