Connecticut patient has COVID for more than 450 days

CONNECTICUT - A Connecticut resident has had an active COVID-19 infection for well over a year according to Yale researchers.  It is the longest known COVID infection.

The immunocompromised patient, who is in their 60s, also has cancer and has not been identified.

The chronically infected Covid sufferer has had 30 nasal swabs tested for the virus over a series of months with the first one being taken in Feb. 2021.  They were testing positive for the virus 471 days after first being diagnosed with the coronavirus.

The researchers also say that the virus has been rapidly mutating in their body.

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The patient has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and had a stem cell transplant in 2019.  Their disease relapsed in early 2020 and they started on a new chemotherapy regimen.  The patient was noted to have persistent but improving disease up until November 2020 when it started to relapse again.

That is when the patient first tested positive for COVID-19.  The patient was started on palliative radiation therapy on day 278 and was admitted
three times from days 279 to 452 for malignancy-related complications.

Aside from the initial presentation of several days with mild upper respiratory tract symptoms not requiring oxygenation or hospitalization, the patient has remained asymptomatic for the duration of their SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The only COVID-19 treatment the patient received was a monoclonal antibody infusion on day 90, after which the patient did not wish to obtain any additional COVID-19 therapies or vaccines.