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Woman confirmed as coronavirus case for 2nd time, weeks after initial recovery

51 Comments
By Daniel Leussink

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51 Comments
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It shows how little we know about the virus. We should be more careful, and stop comparing it to a flu. We have no idea what this virus actually is.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

! In other words the immune system cannot beat this...,

That would be in wrong words.

Bi-phasic do NOT mean the immune system cannot beat it, it just means that in some cases there are two acute phases, like Tick-borne encephalitis virus, leptospira or B19 parvovirus infection. Anthrax is just the most commonly known. A disease can be bi-phasic and still cure on its own without problem.

13 ( +20 / -7 )

Just goes on to show that this virus is quite tricky.

Either her illness was dormant and she appeared to have "recovered" or she came across someone who was infected.

Regardless, she has fought this before, she can fight it again! 頑張れ!

11 ( +12 / -1 )

I do hope this poor lady fights off this terrible infection.

But once again questions must be asked. She recovered on February 1st and today is February 27th. Has she been out and about, or in self quarantine, or with family and carers?

More information please.

10 ( +10 / -0 )

He said much remains unknown about the virus. "I'm not certain that this is not bi-phasic, like anthrax," he said, meaning the disease appears to go away before recurring.

”like anthrax”

! In other words the immune system cannot beat this...,

No need to panic then!

9 ( +20 / -11 )

This just goes to show how complex and tricky this virus is.

It spreads easily.

It has a relatively high mortality rate.

The time to overcome the infection is quite long.

Tests do not always defect the disease.

The disease can linger even after apparently been cured.

The only way to slow it appears to be quite severe restrictions, which have a massive economic impact.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

@savethegaijin... I think you children’s safety should be your priority! What is better...your children getting infected at the school or sacrificing a few days of education for health, safety and life? They can still study and keep up with their school work at home safely for the next few days!

7 ( +9 / -2 )

Covid-19 is arguably worse than Anthrax, as the corona virus is transmissible from person to person while Anthrax is not.

And the common cold is also "arguably worse" than both, because has killed more people in the history of humanity. That still means your terrible misinterpretation is wrong, being bi-phasic have no relationship with the ability of the immune system to fight the infection. The infection (not the virus itself) could be tri-phasic and you would still be wrong. More than 90% of the patients have successfully defeated the infection.

And why give any importance to the vaccine at this stage? how many diseases you know that had vaccines in the first 3 months of being discovered?

5 ( +15 / -10 )

Some posters seem to carefree about the outbreak! They say “ No need to panic “ ... turning a blind eye to reality! Almost 200 people have been infected in Japan in the past few days and the number is rising rapidly so of course there is a need to worry and panic as it’s human nature. Wait until you get infected with corona virus and then you’ll change your tune and wish you were more concerned about this rather than showing your arrogance as you do now!

5 ( +9 / -4 )

So did she get it again or it never goes away?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

The fact that someone can receive the virus twice is something to worry about. The reasons can be that someone's body wasn't capable of learning the correct genetic code to fight fight off and remove the virus or the virus is changing at a rate in which the learned genetic code cannot keep up.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Well, this was known from the start. Data out of China was says to expect 14% to become reinfected.

And, reinfection is much deadlier. Why isn't that mentioned in the article?

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Be more cautious and take care everyone in Japan. Don’t be so naive like some careless commenters here who seem to take this outbreak so lightly! The truth is that the infection is life threatening and you all should be extremely careful!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

 I think you children’s safety should be your priority!

absolutely right.

I imagine some adult will find it difficult to look after kids for 2 extra weeks. What's the plan on working parents who will be looking after them?

The company I work for issued guideline today (quite well written and timely I must add) to staffs. We can work from home but looking after kids at same time - difficult.

Has PM or education authority issued a guideline what kids and parents are supposed to be doing during their time off? Allowed to go to kouen to mix with friends? I don't know what kids are into but allowing them what they want to do uncontrolled (watch tv) is very dangerous.

I would take them camping.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Read the Lancet Respiratory Medicine for you daily dose of Coronavirus news. Just plain science and no hysteria, fear mongering.

I’ve been reading the Lancet. It is informative and clear.

Much better than some of the crowd on here blowing a gasket, making ignorant speculations and hoping we’ll all go as potty as them.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Also a link to article on how reinfection can mean really bad news:

The article is full of baseless assumptions and things that make no sense, I am not sure if this is a terrible news source or they got pranked by someone that have no knowledge of medicine but I would not trust anything they said.

They keep repeating the "problem" with false negative as if it were something that only happens with this infection, then about "damage by the antibodies" when right now nobody even knows what kind of antibodies or to what levels are produced after the infection, hearth failure is not a diagnostic for deaths (because it does not say the reason behind the hearth failure) etc.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Covid-19 is arguably worse than Anthrax, as the corona virus is transmissible from person to person while Anthrax is not.

And for all we know covid-19 could be triphasic.

Oh, and no vaccine discovered yet....

1 ( +10 / -9 )

@savethegaijin... it’s indeed sad that your daughter’s kindergarten days are ending this way but the bottom line is safety of children is paramount so the Government made this decision. I’m a constant badger of the Japanese Government on these forums but this decision was the appropriate one and I applaud them for putting the children’s health and life above everything else! We can’t have it both ways of complaining that the Government isn’t doing much to control the spread and when they do something positive then we whine again!

1 ( +3 / -2 )

MikeH 

Did I say I disagreed with the closures? I'm perfectly fine looking after my daughter, thanks. 

I'm allowed to be sad that her Kindergarten days are ending this way. She probably won't see most of her classmates again. That's a sad thing. It's not a commentary on whether or not I agree with schools closing.

How did that get thumbed down? Some ( someone? ) need their heads rather than their lungs testing.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

This virus have been a very sensitive issue nowadays and is continuously taking away lives of those innocents. Just hope the latest vaccine developed for it plays a good role and aid those in need.

I see you don't get hysterical about seasonal flu killing more than 15,000 innocents in UK every year and 60,000 plus innocents in the USA... probably around 25,000 in Japan every year?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

@Tora I wanted to mention the 14-17% reinfection rate in one city (not Wuhan) of China too but I can't seem to find the article now.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

People should stop comparing this to the flu. Take heed and be more vigilant about this outbreak as it’s spread will only increase in the days ahead in Tokyo through person to person transmission. Don’t be fools and get careless!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

hate it when this lot go potty!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Almost 200 people have been infected in Japan in the past few days...

Wrong... under 200 people have developed symptoms in the past few days so they were infected most likely within the past two weeks.

The hysteria and mis information is a worse infections than the corona virus.

Instead of blindly following internet nonsense follow the facts.

(and maybe take onboard what @Virusrex is saying; at least he is rational.)

0 ( +1 / -1 )

These levels of hysteria are ridiculous.

There have been over 30000 recoveries, and there is no report of any of them getting it again, so this story is kind of just pure panic.

It's extremely bad taste, and even dangerous how news sites are spreading this panic oriented stories. If you look at it, there have not been any stories about China, because the trend is actually down in China, so there isn't any alarmist or panic inducing story from China.

Shame on the mass-media.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The government is also considering scaling back this year's March 11 memorial ceremony for victims of 2011's massive earthquake and tsunami, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Thursday.

No respect from government. We will be singing a song Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Byrne did on March 11 for example.

If you see someone with crazy hair

Well that's my grandpa

And if you hear some singing from upstairs

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I really hope it was a failure on the test.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

The woman, a resident of Osaka, tested positive on Wednesday after developing a sore throat and chest pains, the prefectural government said in a statement, describing her as being in her 40s. She first tested positive in late January and was discharged from the hospital after recovering on Feb 1, according to the statement.

"Recovering"...what I may have missed somewhere along the line as there is there was no mention of her being tested prior to being discharged!

All it says is that she "recovered", which could mean that she was no longer symptomatic and nothing about being free from the virus!

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Yes, thank you VirusRex. It's nice that we have someone knowledgeable about viruses commenting here. I really appreciate your posts.

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

I just wear my mask and feel warm inside....

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

This is a concerning observation. Two general possible scenarios:

She never truly recovered and the virus lay dormant or follows a biphasic clinical course.

She recovered the first time, then got reinfected.

Critical questions to answer relate to how common this is amongst other patients, what the severity will be moving forward, whether this patient will be able to overcome the virus fully the second time around, and why there is an apparent lack of immunity in case of reinfection.

Until the doctors share their observations with the medical community through publication though, all claims regarding the above should be considered nothing but speculation.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

@tamanegi

I also couldn't find original source, but found this one with re-infection rate in Guangdong.

https://www.todayonline.com/world/14-patients-who-recovered-covid-19-test-positive-again-guangdong-report

Also a link to article on how reinfection can mean really bad news:

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3876197

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I laughed out loud at the anthrax comparison. There really was no other possible comparison that wasn’t as fear-mongering?

Anyway regarding the woman who contracted the virus for an alleged second time, the fact that she presented with a sore throat was a huge indicator that this could have been a false positive. A recent Lancet study of COVID-19 found that only in 5% of cases is a sore throat presented. The major symptoms are fever, shortness of breath, and dry cough.

It’s indeed possible that the test just tripped up because she was infected once earlier. Or, given that we’ve heard so many stories of false negatives (people testing negative several times before finally testing positive) there’s no reason to believe this couldn’t be the related false positive.

It just seems these tests are not that reliable.

-2 ( +9 / -11 )

@virusrex

Good posts on this topic. Keep ‘em coming.

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

I meant basher ... not badger! Damn autocorrect!

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

@MikeH

Yeah, I agree with all of that. I don't think anyone sensible would say it's a bad idea.

It's still sad for my daughter. That's all I'm saying.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

This virus have been a very sensitive issue nowadays and is continuously taking away lives of those innocents. Just hope the latest vaccine developed for it plays a good role and aid those in need.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

From British perspective....

What's over the counter price of paracetamol and ibuprofen in Japan for 2 month supply?

薬局でアセトアミノフェンとイブプロフェンを二ヶ月分買うのは可能ですか?教えて下さい。

During my 2 weeks off

Watch Pythagoraswitch on TV and reenact by putting my kitchen apart.

Watch NHK and talk about news with kids.

Listen to music.

Stop paying for youtube and enjoy the magical computer algorithm. You might find adverts that will be pleasing.

Keep up with friends using social media and keep it real by giving them thumb up.

Look up lyrics on Internet for songs you always wanted learn and sing aloud.

If the song is in foreign tongue learn to roll the tongue in same manner and feel.

Eat lunch.

Life can't be that bad studying at home.

in between I will be taking paracetamol to get rid of headache that I was thinking about...

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Thank you virusrex for a voice of rational calm.

No need to panic folks, just remember the flue kills more people in the UK each year than this has so far world wide.

The fact is we are still learning about this virus.

-4 ( +7 / -11 )

Some posters seem to carefree about the outbreak! They say “ No need to panic “ ... turning a blind eye to reality!

What do you recommend we do? Post here with lots of exclamation marks and block capitals?

Something concrete would be helpful.

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

@MikeH

Did I say I disagreed with the closures? I'm perfectly fine looking after my daughter, thanks.

I'm allowed to be sad that her Kindergarten days are ending this way. She probably won't see most of her classmates again. That's a sad thing. It's not a commentary on whether or not I agree with schools closing.

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

I had a relapse from somekind of virus crud, I usually have juice with a high concentration of Vitamin C, if I get this crud again, I learn the peppermint is a good natural anti viral source ,I had lots of friends that had the flu, I gave them some juice with high concentration of Vitamin C and some hot chocolate, Chocolate boost the immune system ,I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice Google Peppermint Oil Anti Viral

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

She obviously hadn't fully recovered! Someone dropped the ball here by not retesting her while she was still in the hospital!

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

Been saying this for a while, once you get it, like HIV, it stays with you.

Now, anyone for Man made bioweapon ... the WHO say not... but then, they're very Pro-Chinese ?

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

Now all schools are supposed to be closed from Monday... speechless. I guess tomorrow is my kid's last day of 幼稚園, that's really sad actually.

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to Japanese "doctors".

-8 ( +9 / -17 )

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