Concern grew last month after hundreds of South Koreans retested positive for COVID-19 after being cleared of the virus.
But scientists in South Korea are now downplaying those concerns.
After nearly 447 people in South Korea tested retested positive for the virus, health officials said that patients showed no risk of spreading the virus, according to South Korea’s CDC.
As a result of its findings, South Korea is lifting a quarantine of the 447 patients who were reinfected with the coronavirus. Nearly 11,000 people in South Korea have tested positive for the virus.
"There have been no secondary infections from people who came in contact with the relapsed patients so far," Yoon Tae-ho, a senior health ministry official, said in a briefing. "We have not found evidence that those cases are contagious."
Of 790 contacts of the 285 cases where a person tested positive again, no case was found that was infected solely from contact with relapse cases during relapse period. Viral culture test results of 108 relapse cases were all negative, the South Korean CDC said.
Despite the virus being relatively contained compared to most of the rest of the world, South Korean officials are still urging the public to refrain from visiting crowded places, such as clubs and bars.
Justin Boggs is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @jjboggs or on Facebook .
