In the first large, multicenter analysis of its kind, the 40-hospital UPMC health system today reported its findings on clinician-directed retesting of patients for presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. While retesting was uncommon, the UPMC analysis found that patients positive for COVID-19 stayed positive for an average of three weeks and repeating tests in patients who were initially negative very rarely led to a positive result.
