Background: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is an epidemic of the respiratory disease that had been discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan city in China, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This study aimed to assess the importance of quarantining suspected COVID-19 individuals who had initial reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) negative test results. They either had contact with previously reported positive cases or had COVID-19-like symptoms during COVID-19 pandemic.
Methodology: This was a retrospective study, which was conducted in 2 months from April 2020, on individuals with COVID-19-like symptoms or had previously contacted with positive cases. They all presented with initial negative laboratory results of rRT-PCR of SARS-CoV-2 and were at 14 days of self-quarantine.
Results: This study included 3727 suspected cases of COVID-19. There were 35.2% who reported contact with positive cases, whereas 2.7% confirmed as positive cases based on the result of the second swab after initial negative results. Older age was significantly associated with confirmed positive cases (p = 0.001). Symptoms, including cough, shortness of breath (SOB), and fever combined together, were more prevalent among positive
cases (p = 0.003). Accordingly, the positive cases developed symptoms earlier than negative individuals (p = 0.0001).
Conclusion: A few percent of suspected cases were converted to positive COVID-19 cases, and this indicates a low rate of false-negative results of laboratory tests. The most common symptoms were cough and fever combined with SOB; however, SOB alone is not a specific symptom. Regarding the median time of developing symptoms, positive cases significantly developed symptoms earlier compared to the negative group.
Key words: COVID-19, COVID-19 symptoms, COVID-19 diagnosis, suspected COVID-19 patients
|
