By Kevin E. Noonan — In a time of a global pandemic, with antivaxxer and anti-science sentiments running rife, and when combinations of fear, distrust, and paranoia are rampant, it is easy for important results from basic science to become fodder inaccurately supporting the doomsday memes that abound. This is the story of a scientific paper from two eminent scientists that, properly understood, explains a puzzling aspect of SARS-CoV-2 biology in COVID-19 patients: why can viral genetic information be detected in some patients months after they have recovered from their illness, using sensitive testing (polymerase chain reaction, or PCR; for…
