Once You Test Negative For COVID-19 The Virus Can Linger For Months After
A new study has found that even if you are COVID-19 free after testing positive, the virus is still in your body months after the infection.
Scientists are still learning about COVID-19 and its effects on people after having the virus. New data indicates that the virus remains in your organs and other parts of your body including the heart and brain. That is scary stuff.
Previously scientists had said it remains or damages the lungs for some people, but as time moves on they are learning more and more of the after-effects.
According to WOOD, scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found the virus can spread widely from the respiratory tract to almost every other organ in the body and linger for months.
Autopsies are being performed on people who have died from COVID-19 and are learning much more about how the virus spreads throughout the body.
What is the most alarming about these new findings is the virus has been discovered in patients 230 days after getting symptoms. That is much longer than the 10-day quarantine but that is different from spreading from one person to another.
Scientists have also found out that even if you were asymptomatic and felt nothing, the virus replicated itself and still spread through your organs. This could mean there could be complications for anyone who has had the virus much further down the road and may not know it now because they were asymptomatic or had a mild case.
The lungs have been the primary source of damage from the coronavirus, but this new data is showing cell damage in the brain, ocular tissue, muscles, skin, peripheral nerves along with tissues in the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endocrine, and lymphatic systems.
Scientists are a long way from understanding the full ramifications of long COVID-19 and will take years to know more of its long-term effects.
There are still unknown effects the virus has on those who were vaccinated and still got the virus.
COVID-19 is more than likely to be around longer than we had hoped because so many have not gotten vaccinated and that keeps it circulating.
Still, your best bet is to get vaccinated if you have not and if you have been vaccinated to get your booster shot.