Doctors in Wuhan, China reveal that the virus may have mutated, giving it the ability to incubate for as much as 24 days and often killing patients who test negative multiple times, only to test positive shortly before death.

The source told the Taiwan Times that the virus has “outsmarted all of us,” as it can hide symptoms for up to 24 days. This assertion has been made independently elsewhere, with Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan saying the average incubation period is three days, but it can take as little as one day and up to 24 days to develop symptoms. Also, the source said that false negative tests for the virus are fairly common. “It can fool the test kit – was there were cases that they found, the CT scan shows both lungs are fully infected but the test came back negative four times. The fifth test came back positive.” – Taiwan Times.

The source also said the virus is killing in new and faster ways, in some cases reinfecting seemingly ‘cured’ patients and killing rapidly via sudden heart failure. “It’s highly possible to get infected a second time. A few people recovered from the first time by their own immune system, but the meds they use are damaging their heart tissue and when they get it the second time, the antibody doesn’t help but makes it worse, and they die a sudden death from heart failure,” reads a message forwarded to Taiwan Times from a relative of one of the doctors living in the United Kingdom.

The CT scan shows both lungs are fully infected but the test came back negative four times. The fifth test came back positive.”

Compounding the containment challenges unique to COVID-19 is an asymptomatic incubation window now cited up to 24 days before a patient begins to exhibit symptoms, delaying ability for detection and lengthening the window for viral shedding and additional infections as a contagious person continues to circulate in the population unaware they are even ill. Incubation periods up to two weeks are most common, but on Sunday, doctors revealed to the Taiwan Times cases of patients who presented no symptoms for 24 days or more even after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus in their bloodstreams.

Skeptics of Coronavirus crisis, largely comprised of laypeople unfamiliar with how pathogens are studied, classified and quantified have been largely dismissive of dire predictions about COVID-19, with many believing it no different than influenza, SARS, MERS or H1N1 outbreaks in recent years that failed to materialize on a significant scale. Early comparative statistics regarding the diseases however paint a far different picture, placing COVID-19 in a far different class of pathogens. In simplest terms, NO. This isn’t “Just like SARS.”

Researchers at the World Health Organization say statistics regarding the Wuhan Coronavirus spread potential and lethality could allow the virus to infect two-thirds of the planet and kill half a billion or more, if present characteristics of the disease maintain and containment efforts fall short.

READ MORE: The Three Numbers That Make COVID-19 Potentially the Deadliest Outbreak Since the 2019 Spanish Flu