Silent disease and loss of taste and smell are common manifestations of SARS-COV-2 infection in a quarantine facility: Saudi Arabia

  1. Alanoud Alshami
  2. Rabab Alattas
  3. Hadeel Anan
  4. Abdulbary Alhalimi
  5. Ahmed Alfaraj
  6. Hadi Al Qahtani

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0241258
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.13.20100222v2 on medRxiv
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.13.20100222: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Study Design and Population: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at King Fahad Specialist Hospital-Dammam.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableResults: Epidemiology and Clinical Characteristics: Among the 128 patients included in the study, 69 (53.9%) were female Table. 1.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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:
    Although we have studied a unique population with a high prevalence of asymptomatic carriers, our study has few limitations. First, our study results cannot be generalized on all COVID-19 patients as we have excluded some high-risk groups. Second, our study is a cross-sectional study, so symptoms ascertainment before admission was subjected to recall bias. However, we find that majority of patients were well aware of their symptoms, and they were able to give us the date of onset of symptoms precisely. In conclusion, the proportion of true asymptomatic carriers in our study was higher than reported. These findings re-enforce the importance of using test-based strategies and contact tracing, rather than symptoms-based screening checklist when dealing with travelers and subjects with direct contact to a lab-confirmed case. This testing-based screening strategy perhaps should be extended to first-line healthcare workers to limit the spread of the disease in hospitals. In addition, countries planning for mitigation measures release should enhance their testing abilities to prevent new outbreaks. Sudden onset of loss of smell and taste might be a predictor of having mild disease. These symptoms might as well be utilized as a marker for testing patients who may be positive for the virus.

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.13.20100222v1 on medRxiv