Research that deliberately infected healthy volunteers with the SARS-CoV-2 virus was published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine.
It takes just a tiny virus-laden droplet -- about the width of a human blood cell -- to infect someone with COVID-19.
They were medically monitored 24 hours a day and stayed for two weeks in rooms at London's Royal Free Hospital that had special air flow to keep the virus from escaping.A total of 18 participants became infected, two of whom never developed symptoms. Among the people who got sick, their illnesses were mild. They had stuffy noses, congestion, sneezing and sore throats.
Chiu says the researchers gave the participants cognitive tests to check their short-term memory and reaction time. They're still looking at that data, but he thinks those tests "will really be informative." COVID-19 has a very short incubation period. It takes about two days after infection for a person to start shedding virus.On average, the young, healthy study volunteers shed virus for 6½ days, but some shed virus for 12 days.About 40 hours after the virus was introduced, it could be detected in the back of the throat.
Everyone was screened for antibodies to closely related viruses, like the original SARS virus. So it wasn't cross-protection that kept them safe; it was something else.
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