Coronavirus: Wuhan to quarantine all cured patients for 14 days after some test positive again
- Recovered and discharged people were sent to designated centres from Saturday onwards
- Decision follows several instances in which recovered patients were found to be still carrying the virus and able to infect others
From Saturday, all patients who had recovered and been discharged had to be sent to designated places for two weeks of quarantine and medical observation, the city’s coronavirus treatment and control command centre said on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.
Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province, of which it is the capital, have continued to account for the vast majority of confirmed coronavirus cases in mainland China, where about 77,000 have been infected and more than 2,400 have died.
The new quarantine arrangements came after Chinese medical experts on the front line of the battle to contain the outbreak warned that recovered patients may still carry the virus and be contagious.
“This is dangerous,” Zhao was quoted as saying by Southern People Weekly magazine. “Where do you put those patients? You cannot send them home, because they might infect others, but you cannot put them in hospital because resources are stretched.”