A research conducted by the Korean Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in South Korea shows that people who test positive within weeks of recovering from coronavirus aren't capable of transmitting the infection.

The South Korean researchers studied 285 COVID survivors who had contracted the virus again after they recovered. The re-positive patients weren't found to spread any lingering infection, as mentioned in a report in Bloomberg. Additionally, the virus samples collected from them also could not be grown in culture, which indicates that the patients were shedding non-infectious or dead virus particles. This indicates that people who recover from COVID-19 do not pose risk of infections.

These findings come as a positive sign for countries looking to relax lockdown norms. India also relaxed the lockdown restrictions with effect from May 18. While there are still a lot of restrictions left, markets have been opened.

The news site said that South Korea would not consider people who have recovered once as infectious. Moreover, a PCR test cannot distinguish between dead and active virus particles. This means that people would assume that people who test positive again remain infectious.

South Korean authorities have said that under the revised protocols, if once recovered and completed the isolation period, patients do not need to test negative before returning to work or to school. "Under the new protocols, no additional tests are required for cases that have been discharged from isolation," the Korean CDC said in a report. The agency also said that re-positive cases would now be identified as "PCR re-detected after discharge from isolation".

So far globally, 4,895,033 people have been infected with 320,192 deaths and 1,909,433 recoveries. South Korea has reported 11,078 cases with 263 deaths and 9,938 recoveries.