A comparison of health care worker-collected foam and polyester nasal swabs in convalescent COVID-19 patients
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.28.20083055: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Inclusion criteria included a previous positive SARS-CoV-2 test and the ability to consent and agree to participate in the study. Randomization The order of sample collection was randomized in the same manner as in the first cohort. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Polyester swabs were stored in 3 mL of VTM or 2 mL of saline and vortexed for three to five seconds. Polyestersuggested: (Polyester, RRID:SCR_003602)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.28.20083055: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Inclusion criteria included a previous positive SARS-CoV-2 test and the ability to consent and agree to participate in the study. Randomization The order of sample collection was randomized in the same manner as in the first cohort. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Polyester swabs were stored in 3 mL of VTM or 2 mL of saline and vortexed for three to five seconds. Polyestersuggested: (Polyester, RRID:SCR_003602)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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The current study has several limitations. All participants were convalescing COVID-19 patients, and the time from first symptoms and first diagnosis to test date varied from test to test. As patients progressed further from their diagnosis date their viral loads dropped, creating more cases where the Ct values were near the border of detection. Other research has suggested viral load may have already peaked at the time of diagnosis followed by a slow decline over time15. The samples from this study may not be representative of testing in newly infected patients who are seeking their first SARS-CoV-2 test. Additionally, because no NP swabs were obtained for this study, performance of the polyester swab cannot be directly compared to the FDA’s preferred swabbing method12. Although final Ct values were adjusted for varying amounts of transport media, imprecision in these adjustments could alter the VTM polyester versus VTM foam comparison. Finally, the study was not designed to compare the performance of VTM and saline or to estimate an interaction of swab type and transport media type. Despite these limitations, polyester swabs stored in VTM or saline may be a viable sample collection method for COVID-19 testing, especially in light of the shortages of other swab types. The viability of polyester swabs is most clearly demonstrated via the high correlation between polyester and foam Ct values from the same visit. Any recommendation for polyester swab usage should bear in mind t...
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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