After learning possibly how long the novel coronavirus can survive on surfaces, researchers now have an idea of how long the virus lives inside the bodies of those infected by it. WAYS THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK COULD END, ACCORDING TO EXPERTSResearchers in China studied data from some 191 COVID-19 patients, including 54 who died, who were treated at Jinyintan Hospital and Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital. They concluded that the virus’s RNA can live in a patient’s body an average of 20 days, but up to 37 days, or about 5 weeks. For comparison, “viral RNA was detected in respiratory specimens from about a third of patients as long as 4 weeks after disease onset,” for about a third of patients during the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s. And for those infected with the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), “the duration of MERS-CoV RNA detection in lower respiratory specimens persisted for at least 3 weeks,” they added.

Source: Fox News March 13, 2020 18:57 UTC