Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsContagiousnessVaccination and Recovery TimeCurrent GuidanceLong COVID Infections
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
Contagiousness
Vaccination and Recovery Time
Current Guidance
Long COVID Infections
How long COVID-19 stays in your system can vary, but most people who get COVID are no longer contagious after 10 days.Those with severeCOVIDmay remain infectious beyond 10 days and need to take additional precautions.
However, there are people in whom COVID has been known to persist for months rather than weeks. In fact, it’s possible for COVID to remain in the body more than a year. While cases like these are rare, there is increasing evidence that the virus may persist in other tissues for longer than previously thought and possibly contribute to the development oflong COVID.
How Long Is COVID-19 Contagious?
As a general rule, most people with mild to moderate COVID are no longer contagious 10 days after symptoms first appear. However, for people withsevere symptomsorweakened immune systems, the virus can stay in the system for longer periods of time.The type and duration of symptoms will vary. For mild cases of COVID, symptoms can last one to two weeks. Recovery can be much longer for more severe cases.
When you get COVID, you are contagious because your body is continuously shedding infectious particles (called viral shedding). Until viral shedding fully ceases, there is a chance you can infect others. The shedding can persist whether you have symptoms or not and even after you no longertest positive for COVID.
However, as time passes, the potential for infection dramatically decreases as there are generally too few viral particles for an infection to be viable.
How Long Does COVID Last if You’re Vaccinated?
Vaccination status can affecthow long you are contagious with COVID, as well as how long the virus stays in your system. Ongoing research suggests that those who are vaccinated against COVID may be able to clear the virus from their bodies faster than their unvaccinated counterparts.
According to a 2022 study published inEmerging Infectious Diseases,vaccinatedpeople with mild or asymptomatic COVID experience shedding six to nine days after being diagnosed or developing symptoms.While shedding can persist well after this time, any viruses shed after the first 10 days are considered non-viable due to their low numbers.
The same may not be true for people who remainunvaccinated against COVID-19. A 2022 study published inPLoS Pathologyreported that unvaccinated people continue to experience viable shedding an average of seven and a half days compared to six days for those who were vaccinated.
While a 15% difference may seem incidental, as new variants of COVID-19 continue to emerge, the length of time people are contagious may change and the difference in shedding times between vaccinated and unvaccinated people may widen.
How Long Should You Stay Home Once You Test Positive for COVID?
In March 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its guidance on the isolation of people with diagnosed or suspected COVID.
According to the CDC, if you test positive for COVID or have symptoms of a respiratory viral infection:
COVID Can Stay in the Body Long After Infection
Research shows, that for some people, the COVID-19 virus can remain in the body for more than a year after infection.
One such case presented at the 2022 European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases described an incident in which animmunocompromisedperson tested positive for 505 days until the time of their death.
A similar case was identified in London in which positive COVID test results were returned for more than a year in another immunocompromised individual.
While this shouldn’t suggest that being immunocompromised inherently prevents you from clearing the virus, it may lengthen the time that COVID remains in the body.
Similar cases were identified in Spain and China where viral shedding persisted for 189 days and 169 days, respectively.
While the cause of this phenomenon is unknown, it is thought that the lack of an intact immune system provides thevirus the opportunity to mutateand createvariantsthat theimmune systemhas a hard time clearing. These variants can then be passed into the larger population where they may or may not do harm.
Viral Persistence and Long COVID
There is also evidence that COVID may persist in other tissues outside of the respiratory tract even when COVID tests show no sign of the virus.
According to researchers at Stanford University who monitored 113 individuals with mild to moderate COVID, nearly half (49.2%) had evidence of viral shedding in their stool. Even after the nasal swab tests came back negative, 12.7% continued to shed the virus in their stools for the next four months. By month seven, 3.8% were still shedding the virus.
Another study published inScience Translational Medicinein 2024 found that the virus could replicate in tissues for up to two years after infection.
In theory, this might explain why certain people developlong COVIDin which symptoms persist for more than 12 weeks even when tests show no evidence of the virus. In fact, the vast majority ofCOVID long haulerstest negative for the virus.
Summary
The amount of time that COVID stays in the body varies from person to person. That’s one reason why it’s important that you take steps to protect others if you are ill or think that you were in contact with someone who might have been.
15 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
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