Coronavirus: COVID infectiousness lasts for more than 5 days, finds new study

The participants were monitored in their homes from the day when they were first exposed to the virus, the day when they developed infection till the day they stopped showing signs of infection.

“By using special daily tests to measure infectious virus (not just PCR) and daily symptom records we were able to define the window in which people are infectious. This is fundamental to controlling any pandemic and has not been previously defined for any respiratory infection in the community,” says Professor Lalvani.

Participants completed daily questionnaires about their symptoms and did daily nasal and throat swabs that were sent to a laboratory for PCR-testing.

Though 57 participants had enrolled for the study, the duration of infectiousness was measured in 42 people due to several reasons like some of the participants did not share any information, and some did not shed culturable virus, the study says.