Resurgence of Positive qRT-PCR Test Results in Patients Recovered from COVID-19: Case Reports

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a newly emerging coronavirus. This virus poses a great threat to human society and has been marked as the third introduction of a highly pathogenic coronavirus into the human population. This is following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the 21st-century. While China has achieved initial success in controlling the spread of COVID-19 and treating those infected with SARS-CoV-2, up to 14% of COVID-19 convalescents can still be detected with virus nucleic acid. Thus, there is an urgent need for more information to understand this new virus. Here we report the detailed clinical characteristics of three cases of COVID-19 convalescents that had repeated positive quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) test results for over three months. This may arouse concerns regarding the present quarantine protocol after convalescence and provide a reference for governments to consider when to reopen the community.