Epidemiological characterization of symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and positivity in subsequent RT-PCR tests in the United Arab Emirates
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Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases could be symptomatic or asymptomatic. We (1) characterized and analyzed data collected from the first cohort of reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 cases reported in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, according to the symptomatic state, and (2) identified factors associated with the symptomatic state. The association between the symptomatic state and testing positive in three subsequent RT-PCR testing rounds was also quantified. Between February 28 and April 8, 2020, 1,249 cases were reported. Sociodemographic characteristics, working status, travel history, and chronic comorbidities of 791 cases were analyzed according to the symptomatic state (symptomatic or asymptomatic). After the first confirmatory test, the results of three subsequent tests were analyzed. The mean age of the 791 cases was 35.6 ± 12.7 years (range: 1–81). Nearly 57.0% of cases were symptomatic. The two most frequent symptoms were fever (58.0%) and cough (41.0%). Symptomatic cases (mean age 36.3 ± 12.6 years) were significantly older than asymptomatic cases (mean age 34.5 ± 12.7 years). Compared with nonworking populations, working in public places (adjusted odds ratio (aOR), 1.76, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.11–2.80), healthcare settings (aOR, 2.09, 95% CI: 1.01–4.31), or in the aviation and tourism sectors (aOR, 2.24, 95% CI: 1.14–4.40) was independently associated with the symptomatic state. Reporting at least one chronic comorbidity was also associated with symptomatic cases (aOR, 1.76, 95% CI: 1.03–3.01). Compared with asymptomatic cases, symptomatic cases had a prolonged duration of viral shedding and consistent odds of ≥2 positive COVID-19 tests result out of the three subsequent testing rounds. A substantial proportion of the diagnosed COVID-19 cases in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi were asymptomatic. Quarantining asymptomatic cases, implementing prevention measures, and raising awareness among populations working in high-risk settings are warranted.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.23.20200030: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: This study was approved by the Abu Dhabi Health COVID-19 Research Ethics Committee (IRB DOH/CVDC/2020/1518).
Consent: Owing to the retrospective analysis nature of the study, patient’s informed consent was waived.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analyses were performed using the IBM SPSS software (version 26). SPSSsuggested: (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).
R…SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.23.20200030: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: This study was approved by the Abu Dhabi Health COVID-19 Research Ethics Committee (IRB DOH/CVDC/2020/1518).
Consent: Owing to the retrospective analysis nature of the study, patient’s informed consent was waived.Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analyses were performed using the IBM SPSS software (version 26). SPSSsuggested: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations and Strengths: Potentially, there are several limitations that should be practiced when interpreting our findings. First, the collected information on the measured sociodemographic and medical conditions was based on self-reports. This potentially may have introduced a risk of reporting bias that could have underestimated or overestimated our findings. However, this is less likely to occur as all the data was collected by trained healthcare staff who are familiar with data collection and with the definition of chronic comorbidities. Second, categorization of the COVID-19 cases into the symptomatic and asymptomatic state without further categorization into a mild, moderate, severe, or critical state. This was because of the lack of other clinical parameters that are necessary for such categorization. However, performing further analysis according to the number of symptoms (asymptomatic, one symptom, 2-3 symptoms, and ≥4 symptoms) was consistent with current findings apart from the significant reduction in the power of the obtained estimates (data not shown). Another important limitation that would potentially further limit the generalizability of our findings is the substantial proportion (36.7%) of missing data on the symptomatic state of COVID-19 cases. Nevertheless, to exclude the potential effect of the missing data, the COVID-19 cases included in this analysis were similar to those with missing data, according to the measured exposure variables except for the ...
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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