Journal of Clinical Medicine· 2020Q2
Incubation Period and Other Epidemiological Characteristics of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Infections with Right Truncation: A Statistical Analysis of Publicly Available Case Data
- 1,482citations
- Q2SCImago
- 2020year
Short summary
The incubation period for COVID-19 is typically 2-14 days, with a mean of 5 days, and a recommended quarantine of at least 14 days.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- COVID-19 incubation period is estimated to be 2-14 days with a mean of ~5 days.
- Mean time from illness onset to hospital admission is 3-4 days (5-9 days when right-truncated).
- Median time from illness onset to death is 13 days (17 days with right truncation).
- A quarantine period of at least 14 days is recommended based on the 95th percentile of the incubation period.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
The geographic spread of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections from the epicenter of Wuhan, China, has provided an opportunity to study the natural history of the recently emerged virus. Using publicly available event-date data from the ongoing epidemic, the present study investigated the incubation period and other time intervals that govern the epidemiological dynamics of COVID-19 infections. Our results show that the incubation period falls within the range of 2-14 days with 95% confidence and has a mean of around 5 days when approximated using the best-fit lognormal distribution. The mean time from illness onset to hospital admission (for treatment and/or isolation) was estimated at 3-4 days without truncation and at 5-9 days when right truncated. Based on the 95th percentile estimate of the incubation period, we recommend that the length of quarantine should be at least 14 days. The median time delay of 13 days from illness onset to death (17 days with right truncation) should be considered when estimating the COVID-19 case fatality risk.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2020 · DOI ↗
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Field: Modeling and Simulation
Modeling and SimulationMathematics