aCorporal Michael J. Crescenz Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania bUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Author disclosures
The authors report no actual or potential conflicts of interest or outside sources of funding with regard to this article.
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Federal Practitioner, Frontline Medical Communications Inc., the US Government, or any of its agencies.
Ethics and consent
The Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Veterans Affairs Medical Center Institutional Review Board reviewed and approved this study.
Ten of the 25 patients testing positive were admitted to the hospital, including 1 admitted 15 days before diagnosis (patient 20) and 1 admitted 80 days after diagnosis (patient 7). Among these 10 patients, 6 were admitted to the intensive care unit, including patient 7. None of the patients were intubated. Three of the 10 admitted patients died (patients 7, 20, and 24). Patient 7 was a 79-year-old male with a history of dementia, cerebrovascular accident, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and chronic kidney disease with symptoms of lethargy and refusal of oral intake when he was diagnosed with COVID-19. He was admitted 80 days after diagnosis for hyponatremia and acute renal failure, with death on day 87 recorded as complications from the earlier COVID-19 infection. Patient 20, an 89-year-old male with a history of dementia, chronic kidney disease, and hyperlipidemia, had been admitted with fever, cough, and leukocytosis 17 days before COVID-19 diagnosis. He continued to be symptomatic after diagnosis with development of hypotension, dehydration, and refusal of oral intake while on comfort measures/endof- life care and died 15 days after COVID- 19 infection diagnosis. Patient 24 was a 96-year-old male with history of heart failure, hypertension, coronary artery disease, prostate carcinoma, and dementia who developed a cough at the time of diagnosis; because of his underlying condition, he remained in the CLC on comfort care. His symptoms, including hypoxia, worsened until he died 7 days after diagnosis.
Among the 25 patients, 17 were symptomatic at the time of diagnosis; the 14 initially symptomatic patients who survived improved clinically and returned to baseline. Eight of the 25 patients were asymptomatic initially and 3 developed symptoms 2 to 5 days after diagnosis. Only 1 patient who remained asymptomatic was admitted for inability to adhere to quarantine at the CLC. Review of the health records of all surviving symptomatic patients showed symptom resolution with return to baseline that corresponds to an increasing CT/CN value. A 1-tailed t test comparing the initial CT/ CN at the time of diagnosis to the last CT/CN value for symptomatic patients who recovered revealed a statistically significant increase (P < .05). For the symptomatic, symptom resolution and hospital discharge took (if required) a mean 20 days (range, 7-46). Among those who were not hospitalized, symptoms resolved in 7 to 36 days (18 days). Among those requiring hospitalization at any time (excluding patients who died or were asymptomatic), symptom and hospitalization resolution took a mean 22 days (range, 10-46). Asymptomatic patients (patients 8, 10, 15, 16, and 25) also showed increasing CT/CN value during the infection course, although there was no correlation with the continued lack of symptoms.
During the initial validation of the Abbott m2000 instrument, an LOD study included concentrations of 1000, 500, 250, 100, 70, 60, and 50 virus copies/mL (eAppendix 2, available online at doi:10.12788/fp.0276).21 The average CN at 100 virus copies/mL—the manufacturer provided LOD in the instructions for use—was 25.74.20 At a concentration of one-half that (50 virus copies/mL), the average CN was 28.39.
