Optimal upper respiratory tract sampling time for novel coronavirus pneumonia suspects

  1. Jing Zhou
  2. Lin Chen
  3. Dehe Zhang
  4. Haijun Chen
  5. Qiyue Sheng
  6. Hongsheng Deng
  7. Yang Zhang
  8. Shunlan Ni
  9. Shengnan Luo
  10. Binbin Ren

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Abstract

Objective

Explore best upper respiratory tract sampling time of suspected novel coronavirus pneumonia cases.

Methods

We collected dates of patients from Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Jinhua city and so on who had the clear exposure history of a novel coronavirus pneumonia(COVID-19). We retrospected demographic data, exposure time, onset time, visiting time and positive time for novel coronavirus nucleic acid detection in respiratory specimens. There were 256 patients from January 20,2020-February 12,2020 from eight cities included in our study. 106 cases appeared symptoms before January 25 th and 150 after.

Results

There were 136(53.1%)male infected cases. The mean age of all patients was 43.80±14.85. The median time from exposure to onset was 5(3,8) days. The median time of the first time of positive nucleic acid detection was 11(9,14)days and mode number was 13. The median time from onset to the first time of positive nucleic acid detection was 6(4,8)days and mode number was 5. The time from onset to definite diagnosis was 5(3,7) days before January 25 th while it was 7.5(5,10)days after which was significantly shorter before January 25 th (U=3885.5,P<0.001). The time from exposure to definite diagnosis was 11(9,14)days and 11(9,14)days before January 25 th and after and without significant difference. The time from exposure to definite diagnosis was 11(9,13)days in first-tier cities and 13(11,15)days in second and third-tier cities. The difference was significantly shorter of first-tier cities(U=1355.5, P=0.039). And also the time was short from visiting to definite diagnosis which was 2(2,3)days in first-tier cities and 3(2,4)days in second and third-tier cities but without significant difference(U=842.5, P=0.054).

Conclusions

From our study we found that the best upper respiratory tract sampling time for novel coronavirus pneumonia suspects was 13days after exposure. The time from onset to definite diagnosis was shorter after January 25 th . The patients were diagnosed faster in the first-tier cities after exposure.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.06.20069302: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis: Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 23.0 (International Business Machines Corporation, IBM, USA).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.06.20069302 on medRxiv