![]() ![]() WHO defines a confirmed case as a person with laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 infection 2. Health systems must recognize and plan for the management of swab-negative patients in their COVID-19 clinical management, infection control policies and epidemiological assessments.Īs of 15th December 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 70 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally with 1.6 million confirmed deaths 1. Patients with strong clinical features of COVID-19 that are swab-negative are a common clinical challenge. Swab-negative clinical COVID-19 patients had better outcomes, with shorter length of hospital stay, reduced need for > 60% supplementary oxygen and reduced mortality. We compared this group to a similar swab positive cohort and found similar demographic composition, symptomology and laboratory findings. We found 1 in 5 patients with a negative swab and clinical suspicion of COVID-19 received a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 within clinical documentation, discharge summary or death certificate. We performed a retrospective cohort study in two large London hospitals to characterize the demographic, clinical, and hospitalization outcome characteristics of swab-negative clinical COVID-19 patients. The scale, characteristics and clinical relevance of this group are not well described. Patients with strong clinical features of COVID-19 with negative real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) SARS-CoV-2 testing are not currently included in official statistics.
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