--- title: "Scientists: This Is How Long It Takes to Show Coronavirus Symptoms" description: "Researchers are starting to examine the growing dataset of COVID-19 cases, and nail down how long it takes to show coronavirus symptoms." date: "2020-03-10" modified: "2020-03-10" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientists-how-long-coronavirus-symptoms" categories: - "Developments" - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "Pathogens" - "Viruses" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "health" - "research" --- # Scientists: This Is How Long It Takes to Show Coronavirus Symptoms ![]() *Victor Tangermann \Image: Victor Tangermann\* Part of the challenge during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has been that scientists and public health officials are still struggling to understand what makes the coronavirus tick. Now, though, researchers are starting to examine the growing dataset of cases — and fill in the gaps about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus moves through individual bodies and society at large. In a [new paper]() published in the *Annals of Internal Medicine*, a team of doctors examined nearly 200 cases of the coronavirus. Their findings are dense, but the key takeaway for the public: It seems to take about **five days after exposure** for a person to start showing [coronavirus symptoms](). "We have a lot of confidence that the incubation period is around five days," said Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Univewrsity who led the research, in [an interview]() with *The Wall Street* *Journal.* "Some people will have really short incubation periods and some people will have really long ones," he added. "The goal is catching most cases that are infected and have symptoms developed before the deadline." Meanwhile, [separate research]() by a European team found that the patients are likely infectious before they show symptoms — and that at the virus's peak infectiousness, it [sheds more than 1000 times]() as many copies of itself as SARS, a previous deadly outbreak. In other words, the virus seems perfectly optimized to [spread as widely as possible](). On the bright side, the European researchers found, people who catch the bug have likely stopped being infectious entirely by about 10 days after they first show coronavirus symptoms. That means, according to the *Annals* team, that the current recommendation that people who've likely been expected self-quarantine themselves for two weeks is solid advice. "Based on our analysis of publicly available data, the current recommendation of 14 days for active monitoring or quarantine is reasonable, although with that period some cases would be missed over the long-term," Lessler said in a [press release](). ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()