CANBERRA :
Australian authorities say a COVID-19 patient apparently became infectious within a day of contracting the coronavirus.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd gave no details of how the patient was infected in New South Wales state or whether that patient infected anyone else before COVID-19 was diagnosed.
The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, the country’s peak decision-making body for public health emergency, reported such a short incubation was “unusual,” but “not implausible,” Kidd said.
People usually develop symptoms within five to seven days but may become infectious a day or two before their symptoms develop, Kidd said.
A person becoming infectious within 24 hours was unlikely to be evidence of the virus changing, Kidd said. It more likely reflected differences in individual reactions to the virus, he said.