Evaluating the accuracy of different respiratory specimens in the laboratory diagnosis and monitoring the viral shedding of 2019-nCoV infections

“…However, their swabs were only taken during days 1-5 of symptoms. Our results are in accordance with the findings of Yang et al (2020) which also indicated that SARS-CoV-2 is less frequently detected in OP than in NP swabs: the differences in detection rate increase with the time passed since symptom onset, particularly from day 8 onwards [9].…”

“…Sensitivity of the PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 is reported to be 30–60%.10 We performed follow-up PCR testing for this patient because she had close contact with COVID-19 and had gastrointestinal symptoms. Similar findings were reported previously [ 10 ].…”

“…Published literature mainly focused on transmission dynamics, epidemiological features, clinical characters, genomics, psychology, and comments on COVID-19 [ 12 ], and a few reported positivity and viral shedding pattern [ 13 ]. Our finding is in agreement with a documented positive rate of 48.1%-66.67% in faecal samples [ 14 – 16 ] and is slightly lower than the positive rate of 29.6%-61.3% among throat swabs reported previously [ 17 , 18 ]. With regard to the viral shedding pattern, despite an incubation period of 1–14 days [ 19 ], our observed longest viral shedding on day 45 after the last exposure in respiratory tract specimens and for a duration of 26 days in faecal samples are still much longer than the previously reported viral shedding of day 24 after disease onset in nasopharyngeal aspirates and for a duration of 1–7 days in faecal samples [ 20 ].…”