Additional information on COVID-19 recovery from local health official

Some additional information has come out to give the public a better picture of the new coronavirus.

One of the latest developments is that public health officials have a better grasp on how long patients continue to shed the virus after they develop symptoms.

Washington County Public Health Administrator Danielle Pettit-Majewski said a person has 'recovered” from COVID-19 once they have been fever-free for 72 hours, and at least 10 days after the onset of symptoms. If the person is asymptomatic, it must be at least 10 days from their positive test.

Pettit-Majewski said a person can still test positive for coronavirus weeks after contracting it, even though they're not shedding active copies of the virus.

'When I hear employers say I need a negative test before an employee comes back to work, I tell them, ‘Be prepared not to see that employee for a while,'” she said.

Pettit-Majewski said the original guidelines were that a person had recovered from COVID-19 after seven days of being symptom free, but the public health community realized that people were still shedding active copies of the virus after that, so the guideline changed to 10 days.

'It's an imperfect science. We're still learning about the virus,” she said.

Since COVID-19 still is brand-new, nothing is known about its long-term health effects. Pettit-Majewski said it's important to note that it could leave people with lung or kidney damage, so the fact that they have 'recovered” doesn't mean they're back to full health.

'We don't know what the long-term outcome will be for these people who have been very ill,” she said.