key: cord-277698-g8sylrsj
authors: Chen, Dexiong; Li, Yueping; Deng, Xilong; Huang, Huanliang; Ou, Xueting; Lin, Yuebao; Pan, Xingfei; Lei, Chunliang
title: Four cases from a family cluster were diagnosed as COVID‐19 after 14‐day of quarantine period
date: 2020-04-08
journal: J Med Virol
DOI: 10.1002/jmv.25849
sha: 
doc_id: 277698
cord_uid: g8sylrsj

Since December, 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), caused by SARS‐CoV‐2, has spread to a lot of countries worldwide(1,2). On Jan 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared that the outbreak of COVID‐19 is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. On March 11, 2020, the spread of COVID‐19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

cases, close contacts have to be quarantined for 14 days in order to exclude them from COVID-19. However, Lauer et al 9 recently reported that 1% (101 out of every 10 000 cases) of suspected cases or close contacts would develop symptoms of COVID-19 after 14-day of quarantine period. In our study, 4 cases of the family cluster were diagnosed as COVID-19 after they had undergone 14-day of quarantine period. Furthermore, the time period from infection to symptoms onset of them was estimated to be 25.33±5.03 days. Taken together, we believe that the incubation period of some COVID-19 cases could be longer than 14 days.

In sum, perhaps the incubation period of some COVID-19 cases could be longer out of our imagination. As a result, the quarantine period of some suspected cases or close contacts could be prolonged to more than 14 days in order to miss diagnosis of COVID-19. This could make it difficult to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Because only four cases were enrolled to estimate the incubation period in the present study, more cases should be in enrolled to further evaluate the incubation period of COVID-19 in the future. COVID-19 is a newly emerged disease, so we should pay more attention to observe characteristics of it, and think unthinkable and prepare enough to face it 10 . 

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<10(<10)

Note: WBC, white blood cell; NEUT, neutrophil; LYM, lymphocyte; PLT, platelet; RBC, red blood cell

Accepted Article