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Does anyone know when the contagious period (for a single covid infection) tends to end? Are you contagious the entire time you have symptoms? Beyond that point
by tunesmith 7y ago
Does anyone know when the contagious period (for a single covid infection) tends to end? Are you contagious the entire time you have symptoms? Beyond that point? ("Viral shedding" doesn't necessarily mean contagious.)
- Gibbon1 7y agoDiane Havlir Professor of Medicine and Chief of the HIV/AIDS at Division at UCSF gave a presentation where she said they can't culture virus 8 days after symptoms. And that viral fragments can be detected for weeks. Source: https://youtu.be/bt-BzEve46Y?t=435 https://youtu.be/bt-BzEve46Y?t=435
- tunesmith 7y agoThanks, that's interesting. Given an infectiousness period, it seems you can relate R0 to doubling time. Like, if R0 is 2, that means each patient (on average) infects 2 others, but during the period of time they are infectious. So that would mean 2 others over the course of 10 days (8 days post-symptom, 2 days pre-symptom).
- Gibbon1 7y agoSomeone else either in this video or one of the others they said viral shedding in COVID19 is a 1000 times higher than SARS. There is a paper up on the CDC website that estimated r0 between 3.8 and 8.7, which is much higher than initial estimates. Matches the observation that in crowded indoor locations (nursing homes, prisons, homeless shelters, cal centers) everyone becomes infected within days to a week. UCSF's grand rounds on covid19 go up every Thursday. Upside, high quality distilled information. Downside, hour and a half long.