Self-Assessed Severity as a Determinant of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Symptom Specificity: A Longitudinal Cohort Study.
Anna BershteynAngela M DahlTracy Q DongMeagan E DemingConnie L CelumHelen Y ChuAngelica C KottkampAlexander L GreningerRisa M HoffmanKeith R JeromeChristine M JohnstonPatricia J KissingerRaphael J LandovitzMiriam K LauferAlfred LukKathleen M NeuzilMichael K Paasche-OrlowRobert A PittsMark D SchwartzHelen C Stankiewicz KaritaLorna E ThorpeAnna WaldCrystal Y ZhengMark H WenerRuanne V BarnabasElizabeth R BrownPublished in: Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (2022)
Coronavirus disease 2019 symptom definitions rarely include symptom severity. We collected daily nasal swab samples and symptom diaries from contacts of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) case patients. Requiring ≥1 moderate or severe symptom reduced sensitivity to predict SARS-CoV-2 shedding from 60.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 52.9%-66.7%) to 31.5% (95% CI, 25.7%- 38.0%) but increased specificity from 77.5% (95% CI, 75.3%-79.5%) to 93.8% (95% CI, 92.7%-94.8%).