Good News: South Korean Experts Raise Hope of Long-term Immunity Against COVID-19

Pat Stevens/

South Korean experts have concluded that COVID-19 patients who were feared to have been ‘reinfected’ with the virus were just false positives.

This marks a huge boost for long term immunity against COVID-19 over which a lot of scientists have expressed great concerns.

According to the UK Guardian, a panel of clinical experts yesterday also concluded that recovered coronavirus patients who later test positive for the virus again were not “reactivated” or reinfected, but were false positives.

The head of the committee said the false positives were due to technical limits of PCR testing. The country has so far reported 292 such cases.

Local health authorities also concluded that no community transmission occurred from a parliamentary election this month, where authorities took safety measures, including requiring voters to wear masks and plastic gloves when casting ballots.

“Twenty-nine million voters participated in the 15 April parliamentary election … Not one case related to the election has been reported during the 14 days of incubation period,” Yoon Tae-ho, director general for public health policy, told a briefing.

Polling stations were disinfected across the country ahead of the election and voters were directed to maintain one metre distance between each other.

After grappling with the first major outbreak outside China, South Korea has largely managed to bring the outbreak under control without major disruptions with a massive testing campaign and intensive contact tracing.