The Incubation Period of COVID-19 From Publicly Reported Confirmed Cases

Authored by annals.org and submitted by informationtiger

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland (S.A.L., K.H.G., Q.B., F.K.J., Q.Z., H.R.M., A.S.A., J.L.)

School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany (N.G.R.)

Acknowledgment: The authors thank all who have collected, prepared, and shared data throughout this outbreak. They are particularly grateful to Dr. Kaiyuan Sun, Ms. Jenny Chen, and Dr. Cecile Viboud from the Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health; Dr. Moritz Kraemer and the open COVID-19 data working group; and the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Grant Support: By the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NU2GGH002000), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01 AI135115), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35 GM119582), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Disclosures: Dr. Lauer reports grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the conduct of the study. Ms. Grantz reports a grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the conduct of the study. Dr. Reich reports grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation during the conduct of the study. Dr. Lessler reports a grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the conduct of the study. Authors not named here have disclosed no conflicts of interest. Disclosures can also be viewed at www.acponline.org/authors/icmje/ConflictOfInterestForms.do?msNum=M20-0504.

Editors' Disclosures: Christine Laine, MD, MPH, Editor in Chief, reports that her spouse has stock options/holdings with Targeted Diagnostics and Therapeutics. Darren B. Taichman, MD, PhD, Executive Editor, reports that he has no financial relationships or interests to disclose. Cynthia D. Mulrow, MD, MSc, Senior Deputy Editor, reports that she has no relationships or interests to disclose. Jaya K. Rao, MD, MHS, Deputy Editor, reports that she has stock holdings/options in Eli Lilly and Pfizer. Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH, Deputy Editor, reports employment with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Sankey V. Williams, MD, Deputy Editor, reports that he has no financial relationships or interests to disclose. Yu-Xiao Yang, MD, MSCE, Deputy Editor, reports that he has no financial relationships or interest to disclose.

Reproducible Research Statement: Study protocol: Not applicable. Statistical code and data set: Available at https://github.com/HopkinsIDD/ncov_incubation.

Corresponding Author: Justin Lessler, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205; e-mail, [email protected].

Current Author Addresses: Drs. Lauer, Meredith, and Lessler; Ms. Grantz; Ms. Bi; Mr. Jones; and Ms. Zheng: Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205.

Dr. Azman: Médecins Sans Frontières, Rue de Lausanne 72, 1202 Genève, Switzerland.

Dr. Reich: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, 715 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003-9304.

Author Contributions: Conception and design: S.A. Lauer, K.H. Grantz, F.K. Jones, N.G. Reich, J. Lessler.

Analysis and interpretation of the data: S.A. Lauer, K.H. Grantz, Q. Bi, F.K. Jones, N.G. Reich, J. Lessler.

Drafting of the article: S.A. Lauer, K.H. Grantz, Q. Bi, F.K. Jones, A.S. Azman, N.G. Reich.

Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content: Q. Bi, F.K. Jones, A.S. Azman, N.G. Reich, J. Lessler.

Final approval of the article: S.A. Lauer, K.H. Grantz, Q. Bi, F.K. Jones, Q. Zheng, H.R. Meredith, A.S. Azman, N.G. Reich, J. Lessler.

Statistical expertise: Q. Bi, N.G. Reich, J. Lessler.

Collection and assembly of data: S.A. Lauer, K.H. Grantz, Q. Bi, F.K. Jones, Q. Zheng, H.R. Meredith.

Previous Posting: This manuscript was posted as a preprint on medRxiv on 4 February 2020. doi:10.1101/2020.02.02.20020016

chroniclly2nice on March 10th, 2020 at 03:11 UTC »

Lets say you get it, survive and are over having it. Are you now immune to getting it again? Do you have the antibodies to fight it?

2_Sheds_Jackson on March 10th, 2020 at 00:36 UTC »

At what point do the test kits return useful results? Meaning: what is the minimum number of days of isolation required before a negative test can be relied on to mean that the patient is cleared?

burningatallends on March 10th, 2020 at 00:26 UTC »

Limitation: Publicly reported cases may overrepresent severe cases, the incubation period for which may differ from that of mild cases.

This study is sourcing data from publicly reported cases. Not saying it's invalid, but it's really about more severe cases.