logo

Are people with lingering COVID-19 symptoms sometimes testing negative?

Tuesday, June 30, 2020
By Mikayla Campbell
YES

Despite still showing symptoms of COVID-19 months after the first onset, some patients may show negative results from diagnostic tests for the presence of the coronavirus causing the disease.

These patients have reported recurring waves of symptoms, and doctors and researchers have yet to establish any common pattern of test results. As the viral load fluctuates, doctors are not sure if patients are falsely testing negative or if the test is picking up dead virus particles. It's uncertain how long patients with lingering symptoms remain contagious.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email