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Estimation of incubation period distribution of COVID-19 using disease onset forward time: A novel cross-sectional and forward follow-up study.

Authors :
Qin J
You C
Lin Q
Hu T
Yu S
Zhou XH
Source :
Science advances [Sci Adv] 2020 Aug 14; Vol. 6 (33), pp. eabc1202. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Aug 14 (Print Publication: 2020).
Publication Year :
2020

Abstract

We have proposed a novel, accurate low-cost method to estimate the incubation-period distribution of COVID-19 by conducting a cross-sectional and forward follow-up study. We identified those presymptomatic individuals at their time of departure from Wuhan and followed them until the development of symptoms. The renewal process was adopted by considering the incubation period as a renewal and the duration between departure and symptoms onset as a forward time. Such a method enhances the accuracy of estimation by reducing recall bias and using the readily available data. The estimated median incubation period was 7.76 days [95% confidence interval (CI): 7.02 to 8.53], and the 90th percentile was 14.28 days (95% CI: 13.64 to 14.90). By including the possibility that a small portion of patients may contract the disease on their way out of Wuhan, the estimated probability that the incubation period is longer than 14 days was between 5 and 10%.<br /> (Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).)

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2375-2548
Volume :
6
Issue :
33
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Science advances
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
32851189
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc1202