What researchers have learned from deliberately giving people Covid

What it all means: The findings come with a caveat that they came from a small group of volunteers and were published in preprint papers that have not yet been peer-reviewed. However, they still provide useful insights. The fact that people became contagious so quickly and remained contagious for so long suggests that the recommended quarantine period should remain around ten days. Although the virus is first found in the throat, it ends up in much higher levels in the nose, underscoring the need to properly wear a mask to cover the nose.

Take the test: The study also supports the routine, widespread use of lateral flow testing. Modelling using research data found that regular rapid testing can diagnose infection before 70-80% of contagious virus is produced, meaning that community transmission can be significantly reduced if people are tested regularly and quarantined if they test positive. The fact that no participants were seriously ill also suggests that this challenge trial approach could be used to test future variants or drugs in the future.

Dr Sir Michael Jacobs, an infectious disease consultant at the Royal Free Hospital in London, who conducted the trial, said in a statement: “This trial has already provided some fascinating new insights into SARS-CoV2 infection, But perhaps its greatest contribution is opening up a new way to study infection and the immune response to it in detail, and to help test new vaccines and treatments.”