La Crosse County health officials reported Tuesday that a resident has been reinfected with COVID-19, though scientists studying the virus have yet to report a case that was confirmed to be a reinfection, and not a flare-up of a previous infection.<\/p>\n
According to a Facebook post from the La Crosse County Health Department, the person first tested positive for COVID-19 more than three months ago.<\/p>\n
The Centers for Disease Control and Preventionon July 22 said there had been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 reinfection, but scientists continue to investigate the possibility.<\/p>\n
The La Crosse County Health Department was not immediately available for comment Tuesday evening, but health officials did respond to questions earlierTuesday on the department's Facebook page.<\/p>\n
In response to a Facebook comment askingwhether the infection could possibly be \"one long case,\" the health department said it was considering the case a reinfection and cited guidance from the CDC: \"If a positive test occurs more than 3 months after a persons symptom onset, clinicians and public health authorities should consider the possibility of reinfection.\"<\/p>\n
The patient's symptoms \"were not the same the second time,\" the health department said in response to another question,thoughhealth officials did not share what those symptoms are.<\/p>\n
In a July 22 story in The New York Times, scientists said it would be extremely rare for someone to become reinfected with COVID-19, but not impossible. <\/p>\n
And people who've been infected with related coronaviruses \"appear to become susceptible again at around 90 days after onset ofinfection,\" according to the CDC.<\/p>\n
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests the antibodies produced by the immune system to fight COVID-19 may only last a few months in people with mild cases. But once infected, the immune system remembers how to make fresh antibodies if needed, according to a story byThe Associated Press.<\/p>\n
There is also a growing recognition among scientists and doctors that it's possible for the virus to lay dormant for months and then flare up again insome patients.<\/p>\n
It is difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person has been reinfected with COVID-19, said Dr. Nasia Safdar,who studies infectious disease at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is medical director of infection control at UW Health.<\/p>\n
Certain conditions have to be met to prove a reinfection, Safdar said. A person first has to recover from the original infection and then be infected with a strain of the virus that is either different from what they had before or that can be \"cultured,\" meaning grown in a lab and proven to be a live, viable virus \"and not just a persistent presence\" of the original COVID-19 infection.<\/p>\n
Safdar said most labs are not equipped to culture for COVID-19 because its hazardous.<\/p>\n
In the absence of that, the best you can do is have some sort of criteria that if a certain amount of time has elapsed and somebody comes up with still a (positive test),it may be reinfection.\"<\/p>\n
But that doesn't necessarily prove a reinfection, she said, because scientists have learned that people still test positive for the coronavirus \"several weeks after the first infection.\"<\/p>\n
Cases that have been reported as \"reinfections\" could instead be a person's first encounter with the virus, after a person's initial test was a false positive.<\/p>\n
La Crosse isn't the only county in the U.S. to report a reinfection. Also Tuesday, Todd County in Kentucky reported that a single patient was counted asa reinfectionbecause more than 90 days had passed between positive tests.<\/p>\n
As of Tuesday, there have been 844 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in La Crosse County. Four people are hospitalized and one person has died.<\/p>\n
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Contact Natalie Brophy at (715) 216-5452 or nbrophy@gannett.com<\/a>. Followher on Twitter @brophy_natalie.<\/p>\n Our subscribers make this coverage possible. Subscribe to a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin site today with one of our special offers and support local journalism.<\/p>\n Read or Share this story: https:\/\/www.postcrescent.com\/story\/news\/2020\/08\/04\/coronavirus-wisconsin-reinfection-reported-la-crosse-county\/3294345001\/<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n See the original post:<\/p>\n A Wisconsin county says a resident was 'reinfected' with COVID-19, though scientists have no proof that can happen yet - Appleton Post Crescent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" La Crosse County health officials reported Tuesday that a resident has been reinfected with COVID-19, though scientists studying the virus have yet to report a case that was confirmed to be a reinfection, and not a flare-up of a previous infection. According to a Facebook post from the La Crosse County Health Department, the person first tested positive for COVID-19 more than three months ago. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventionon July 22 said there had been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 reinfection, but scientists continue to investigate the possibility. Continue reading