Am I still contagious a week after testing positive for COVID-19?

As CDC noted in its updated guidance, people tend to be most infectious towards the beginning of a Covid-19 infection. So, by the time you reach day eight, nine, or 10, you still have the chance to spread to other people, but it’s probably not as much as you did early in the course of your infection.

How long is someone with COVID-19 infectious?

Infectiousness peaks around one day before symptom onset and declines within a week of symptom onset, with an average period of infectiousness and risk of transmission between 2-3 days before and 8 days after symptom onset.

How long does it take to recover from COVID-19?

Fortunately, people who have mild to moderate symptoms typically recover in a few days or weeks.

How long after having COVID-19 are you immune?

You’re extremely unlikely to be reinfected with the same variant within a month or two of recovering from Covid-19, Bailey says. One scientific review of published research on Covid-19 immunity suggested that antibody levels begin to decline three months after a previous infection.

How long after mild-to-moderate symptoms of COVID-19 are you contagious?

Available data suggest that patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 remain infectious no longer than 10 days after symptom onset.

Are recovered persons with persistent positive test of COVID-19 infectious to others?

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Persons who have tested persistently or recurrently positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA have, in some cases, had their signs and symptoms of COVID-19 improve. When viral isolation in tissue culture has been attempted in such persons in South Korea and the United States, live virus has not been isolated. There is no evidence to date that clinically recovered persons with persistent or recurrent detection of viral RNA have transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to others.

Despite these observations, it’s not possible to conclude that all persons with persistent or recurrent detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA are no longer infectious. There is no firm evidence that the antibodies that develop in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection are protective. If these antibodies are protective, it’s not known what antibody levels are needed to protect against reinfection.