Symptom Screening at Illness Onset of Health Care Personnel With SARS-CoV-2 Infection in King County, Washington
Eric J. Chow, MD, MS, MPH1; Noah G. Schwartz, MD1; Farrell A. Tobolowsky, DO, MS1; et al Rachael L. T. Zacks, MD1; Melinda Huntington-Frazier, MSN2; Sujan C. Reddy, MD3; Agam K. Rao, MD3
Author Affiliations Article Information
JAMA. Published online April 17, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.6637
As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) exposures among US health care personnel (HCP) during health care delivery and from community contacts will increase. Results from real-time reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction suggest that high viral loads may be detected soon after illness onset, including in minimally symptomatic persons.1 Current COVID-19 HCP screening guidance2 includes assessing fever and respiratory symptoms (cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat) with clinical discretion for evaluation for other symptoms (eg, myalgias). We assessed the spectrum of symptoms at onset of COVID-19 among HCP and evaluated current screening criteria for identifying COVID-19 cases early in illness course.