Did You Know: COVID-19 Patients Can Be Discharged After 14 Days Even If They Are Positive
The decision is based on the latest information provided by the World Health Organization (WHO).
By Yap Wan Xiang — 17 Jun 2020, 06:52 PM
A Twitter poll by the Ministry of Health (MOH) today, 17 June, revealed that a vast majority of Malaysians do not know that COVID-19 patients can be discharged after 14 days despite testing positive
The poll was posted at 1.14pm on Wednesday, and the results show that over 60% of the 37,000 respondents do not know or are unsure that COVID-19 patients who undergo 14 days of treatment can be allowed to go home although their test results come back positive.
"Stop fooling around," responded a netizen to the fact, while another concerned Malaysian said, "Isn't it dangerous? It is good that it saves cost for the hospital, but still..."
However, the information is not new.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has mentioned it previously during health briefings.
Bernama quoted him as saying on 26 May that the decision is based on the latest information issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Research conducted in South Korea and Taiwan show that recovered COVID-19 patients have a very low level of infectivity after being hospitalised for two weeks.
"This information will change MOH's standard operating procedure (SOP) and protocols in managing COVID-19 patients," the Health director-general said at that time.
About three weeks later, Dr Noor Hisham provided an update on the move, presenting confident results that the directive has not caused reinfection or new clusters
"Although they are still detected to be positive, they do not have symptoms, do not fall sick, or spread the disease to their immediate families. Repeated culture studies showed that the COVID-19 virus failed to breed," he said last Friday, 12 June.
"Thus, MOH has concluded that the positive results of COVID-19 in patients who have fully recovered were caused by dead viruses or virus fragments (deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA)."
He elaborated that the results are consistent across the broad in countries such as South Korea, China, Singapore, and Germany.
Citing a study conducted in China, Dr Noor Hisham said COVID-19 patients are generally potently infectious during the first two to three days before they start developing the virus symptoms.
They grow more infectious 0.7 days before the patients become symptomatic. He said the infectivity level dropped exponentially after seven days.
"Our observation is in line with the findings that the infectious period begins two to three days before the symptoms begin, and the peak is one day before the symptoms," Dr Noor Hisham added.
"It is found that the infection period also drops to a very low level within the next seven days."
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