FRIDAY, April 23, 2021 (HealthDay News) – A new study found that isolated NBA players who recovered from COVID-19 but still tested positive for the virus did not infect others after leaving isolation.
That someone who has had COVID could infect others has been a lingering fear, but these findings from the professional basketball league suggest that many who do recover can reconnect with others without spreading the virus, researchers say.
“Re-infection with COVID-19 is possible, especially now with new variants, and any positive test should be taken seriously,” said lead researcher Christina Mack of IQVIA, Real World Solutions in Durham, NC
However, this 2020 study showed that sensitive tests like RT-PCR can still produce a positive result after recovering from COVID. However, in the NBA campus setting, these people weren’t contagious, Mack said.
To wrap up the 2019-20 season, the NBA established a “bubble” in Orlando, Florida – an enclosed campus that is subject to scientific protocols to protect against COVID-19.
More than 3,500 people lived on the campus and were subject to its protocols. All had daily RT-PCR tests. Some had recovered from a previous COVID infection.
“These rescued individuals were not sick and have not been observed to be infectious to others, but instead shed low-level virus particles that were left over from their previous infection,” said Mack.
“We observed that people tested positive for up to 118 days after they started being infected, and that many of those people had tested negative most days associated with their positive test or tests,” she said.
Among the participants, 1% had persistent viruses, most were younger than 30 and male. Antibodies were found in 92% of these persistent cases, all of which were asymptomatic. These people were monitored and there was no transmission of the virus to others, the researchers reported.
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, was not part of the study, but he did review the results.
“The study’s results support the premise that asymptomatic individuals have met [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Isolation discontinuation criteria that have persistently positive RT-PCR test results appear non-infectious to others, “he said.
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