‘Viral shedding’: What is it and when are people with COVID-19 most infectious? - WJW FOX 8 News Cleveland

DENVER (NEXSTAR MEDIA WIRE/KDVR) – Studies of COVID-19 are in the early stages, and while many researchers say there are still unknowns, experts have learned a lot about the virus since March – now, researchers from the U.K.

This release is called “shedding” and viral shedding is how COVID-19 is spread from person to person,” writes the Mayo Clinic.

Muge Cevik, looked at data from 98 studies on patients with three types of coronavirus – SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.

Seventy-nine of the studies were on patients with SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19, but all had to have at least five participants, randomized controlled trials and cohort studies.

With COVID-19, some patients never experience symptoms and others are already shedding the virus at a high rate just as symptoms start to arrive, the study says, making it easier to unknowingly pass the virus to someone else.

“Our findings suggest that, although patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection might have prolonged RNA shedding of up to 83 days in upper respiratory tract infection, no live virus was isolated from culture beyond day 9 of symptoms despite persistently high viral RNA loads,” according to the paper.

The CDC has said that the available data from the studies indicates that someone with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms will no longer be infectious 10 days after the onset of symptoms.