Analysis of factors associated early diagnosis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Jinwei Ai; Junyan Gong; Limin Xing; Renjiao He; Fangtao Tian; Juan Wang; Jun Wang; Shengduo Polo Pei; Dongxuan Chen; Guoxin Huang; Meiling Zhang; Gaojing Qu; Wufeng Fan; Hongming Lin; Desheng Li; Bin Pei

infections, specificity of clinical characteristics of COVID-19 is not strong, current diagnosis mainly relies on nucleic acid test. However, the positive rate of first test is low, which means there is high false negative rate, research (12, 14) shows the positive rate of first nucleic acid RT-PCR test of COVID-19 patients is only around 30-50%. Repeated tests are often conducted in clinical work to increase the positive rate, but in-depth study on diagnostic accuracy have not been carried out. A recent research(15) shows the median time from COVID-19 patient's symptom onset to nucleic acid RT-PCR test positive is 20 days, the shortest time is 8 days, and the longest time is 20 days. It is a disadvantage for early diagnosis of this disease when there is a relatively high false negative rate of nucleic acid RT-PCR test and there is also a relatively long time period from symptom onset to test positive. Especially when human-to-human transmission has been clearly acknowledged, such disadvantage makes it difficult for disease control (9) . Finding a method that has diagnostic value in the early stage, and conduct early diagnosis, early isolation and early treatment on suspected cases, would not only be beneficial for patient's recovery, but also can play a vital role in disease control.