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Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is thought to be caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-associated coronavirus. We studied viral shedding of SARS coronavirus to improve diagnosis and infection control. Reverse-transcriptase PCR was done on 2134 specimens of different types. 355 (45%) specimens of nasopharyngeal aspirates and 150 (28%) of faeces were positive for SARS coronavirus RNA. Positive rates peaked at 6-11 days after onset of illness for nasopharyngeal aspirates (87 of 149 [58%], to 37 of 62 [60%]), and 9-14 days for faeces (15 of 22 [68%], to 26 of 37 [70%]). Overall, peak viral loads were reached at 12-14 days of illness when patients were probably in hospital care, which would explain why hospital workers were prone to infection. Low rate of viral shedding in the first few days of illness meant that early isolation measures would probably be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior to this report, variants of concern for SARS-CoV-2 were only detected from imported cases in Hong Kong., Objective: Multiple cases of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.351 have been identified in local community. We reported the phylogenetic relationship of these cases., Study Design: SARS-CoV-2 cases were screened for the key non-synonymous substitutions in spike protein by different assays. Preliminary positive cases were further tested by whole genome sequencing., Results: From Dec 2020 to May 2021, 55 SARS-CoV-2 cases belonged to lineage B.1.351. Among them, eight genomes were clustered together, all of them were local cases with epidemiological link., Conclusions: To track variants of SARS-CoV-2 and to allow early implementation of control measures, SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance must be consistently performed., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2021 The Authors.)

Four persons with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection had traveled on the same flight from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to Hong Kong, China. Their virus genetic sequences are identical, unique, and belong to a clade not previously identified in Hong Kong, which strongly suggests that the virus can be transmitted during air travel.