COVID-19: Positive Retests / Federal Prisons / Mental Health / Miscarriage

By Kelly Young

Edited by André Sofair, MD, MPH, and William E. Chavey, MD, MS

Have a look at some of the most recent developments on novel coronavirus (COVID-19):

Positive retests: Nearly 300 people in South Korea who have recovered from COVID-19 have tested positive a second time, leading to speculation of reinfection. One official there said it is possible that the second positive tests after recovery could be related to inactive virus RNA in patients' cells, Newsweek reports. As of Wednesday, 2.7% of adults in South Korea who'd recovered from COVID-19 — and 3.4% of recovered children — had tested positive again.

Federal prisons: Over 70% of the 2700 federal prison inmates who were tested for COVID-19 were positive, the Wall Street Journal reports. Only about 2% of the federal prison population has been tested.

Mental health in healthcare workers: The European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care has published a review on supporting the mental health of healthcare workers during the pandemic. The authors say that prevention and mitigation of mental health issues is more important now than cure.

Second-trimester miscarriage: Researchers in Switzerland describe the case of a woman with COVID-19 who had a miscarriage at 19 weeks' gestation. Two days before miscarrying, she presented with myalgia, fatigue, pain while swallowing, diarrhea, and dry cough, and she tested positive for coronavirus. After the miscarriage, SARS-CoV-2 was detected in placental samples, but the fetus tested negative. The researchers note that other causes of miscarriage could not be ruled out.