Sailors on sidelined carrier get virus for second time

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: AP

Five sailors on the aircraft carrier sidelined in Guam due to a COVID-19 outbreak have tested positive for the virus for the second time and have been taken off the ship, according to the Navy.

The resurgence of the virus in the five sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt underscores the befuddling behavior of the highly contagious virus and raises questions about how troops that test positive can be reintegrated into the military, particularly on ships.

All five sailors had previously tested positive and had gone through at least two weeks of isolation. As part of the process, they all had to test negative twice in a row, with the tests separated by at least a day or two before they were allowed to go back to the ship.

The Roosevelt has been at port in Guam since late March after the outbreak of the virus was discovered. More than 4,000 of the 4,800 crew members have gone ashore since then for quarantine or isolation. Earlier this month hundreds of sailors began returning to the ship, in coordinated waves, to get ready to set sail again. In a statement Friday, the Navy said that, while onboard, the five sailors self-monitored and adhered to strict social distancing protocols.

Read more: https://apnews.com/0cae34376380ab4150002a58bd9934b9

[DURHAM D]

1. Isn't this a strong indicator that the tests are faulty? nt

[PoliticAverse]

3. Could be. Or it could be immunity after infection recovery doesn't last...

or the virus could have mutated enough to fool the immune system.

[FarPoint]

9. My thoughts too...

I sense that the immunity response will vary greatly . unpredictable for all ..No heard immunity in the near future I am guessing .

[Warpy]

10. That's the least likely scenario

While the virus could have mutated this quickly, that, too is unilikely.

They could be producing viral debris, that's also likely.

They might have been reinfected, and their immune systems are geared up to deal with it quickly.

What this incredibly stupidly written article doesn't tell us is whether or not any of them are ill a second time, same as the bonehead reporting out of China and S. Korea.

Oscillating between positive and negative in the tests we have now is far less cause for concern than developing symptoms a second time would be.

[lagomorph777]

15. Details, details, who cares, as long as the story gets people fired up?

[Drahthaardogs]

20. Except they are exhibiting symptoms

I think. Another article said they have coughs, headache, and body aches.

[Warpy]

21. I do hope they're testing for flu because that's what it sounds like

This is just too damned unlikely considering the way related coronaviruses have acted.

[jayfish]

5. Perhaps.

It indicates to me that there is no natural immunity to CV-19 and that things are going to get really bad.

[Rebl2]

16. Sounds like

faulty tests to me.

[Warpy]

22. That's part of it, there are too many false negatives

and doctors have mentioned that people who have been ill enough to be intubated while testing negative were found to be positive when secretions in the tube were tested. This thing dives right for the lungs, the nasal passage testing seems like it's pretty unreliable. Oh, the tests are great, it's just not where the bulk of the bug likes to live.

[DeminPennswoods]

19. Think that's the more probably explanation

Bad test results, not that they got it again.

[jayfish]

2. INCONCEIVABLE!

[NotHardly]

13. And here again w/ Trump Adm. a fine example of ...

"...I don't believe that word means what you think it means.

[chwaliszewski]

14. Inconceivable!

[pnwmom]

4. I wonder if they had gotten sick the first time, or possibly had asymptomatic infections. n/t

[Blues Heron]

6. could be relapse

[Duppers]

18. Or a new mutation which their immune system

Didn't carry antibodies for?

IF like cold viruses, it could mutate, think of the # of vaccines that would need to be developed! Yikes! A worst case scenario!

[Jarqui]

7. I'm not saying this applies here but

the South Koreans found instances of that were due to faulty testing

[Igel]

11. Faulty interpretations.

People conflate the results of a test with the presence of live virus.

When you're sick, they're the same so the category error lacks any importance. But we need to keep in mind that a positive PCR test means that viral RNA is present, and that's all it means.

That viral RNA could be inside a virion that can infect somebody. It could be wreckage from virions that have been ripped to pieces and are functionally dead. It's viral RNA either way, and the PCR test shows "viral RNA present" or "viral RNA not present."

Viral RNA was found present in 100+ S. Korean recovered COVID patients. They were assumed to have relapsed or been reinfected. A few were showing symptoms, but that's not very useful. Lots of things produce coughs, fever, aches. Most of the people in the US tested for COVID have negative results, for instance, but all are screened and might have COVID.

When you recover, there's a lot of incapacitated virus in your body that has to be flushed out. It gets removed. Some was in surface membranes that eventually die and get sloughed off and expected out your bronchial tubes. Some gets absorbed by macrophages and reduced to amino acids that cells pick up from the blood plasma for making new proteins. Some gest absorbed and oxidized to release energy. But all told, those processes can take weeks.

The S. Korean recovered COVID patients were subjected to a second kind of test. Researchers tried to get the viral RNA to replicate--was it still part of viable virus or was it degraded viral trash? They couldn't get any of the "relapsed" patients' viral RNA to replicate. All the virus was dead.

The PCR test came back positive. But they weren't infected.

This spirals out to produce uncertainty elsewhere. If you have a mild case of COVID and recover, only to be tested a week later --you're now asymptomatic but test positive. You're not infectious, and you're recovered. It's up to the tester to sort out if you're one of those mysterious asymptomatic-and-never-symptomatic folk, whether you're about to show symptoms, or if you've recovered.

[BarbD]

8. So much we don't know.

It's difficult to put together reliable information when here in the U.S. there is zero leadership from the top. Considering this is a world-wide problem, shouldn't we at least attempt to be part of a world-wide solution?

[OneCrazyDiamond]

12. If we can get it over and over,

does that mean we will never get herd immunity? How does that effect vaccines?

[roamer65]

17. Some SARS-CoV-1 patients took a few months to clear the virus.

I wouldn’t get too alarmed quite yet.