1/ NEW from @shogrenE and @jennifergollan: Despite @CDCgov and @WHO recommendations, new research indicates a 14-day quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 may not be long enough. revealnews.org/article/is-14-…
2/ That 14-day recommendation was extrapolated from an analysis of a small, early sample of patients, which suggested that most of those infected would show symptoms within 12.5 days. nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
3/ But new studies indicate that it takes some people MUCH longer to develop symptoms after they’re exposed – spurring some scientists to raise an alarm that 14 days is not enough.
4/ In fact, a team of scientists from five universities in China and Canada released a study in mid-March that found that nearly 1 in 8 patients had incubation times longer than 14 days. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
5/ “As the outbreak is fast-moving in the world, based on this analysis we recommended that an extension of adults’ quarantine period to 17 or 21 days could be more effective,” they wrote.
6/ The team looked at a sample of 2,015 COVID-19 cases across China.
Of those, 233 patients had incubation periods longer than 14 days. That’s roughly 12 percent of all cases.
Of those, 233 patients had incubation periods longer than 14 days. That’s roughly 12 percent of all cases.
7/ Why is this important? As the number of COVID-19 patients escalates, a too-short quarantine period gets increasingly dangerous. 
8/ One caveat: These findings, like other rapid-fire studies about COVID-19, were produced without peer review.
9/ Meanwhile, another study, this one published in early March in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggests that for every 10,000 people exposed, 101 would develop symptoms after a 14-day quarantine. annals.org/aim/fullarticl…
10/ And @Reuters has reported on one such case in late February, that of a 70-year-old man in China’s Hubei Province who did not show symptoms until 27 days after he was infected. reuters.com/article/us-chi…
11/ @DrEricDing, a Harvard epidemiologist, has called for a “much more conservative approach, as in increasing the quarantine duration in the U.S.”
In the meantime, @CDCgov’s guidelines remain unchanged.
In the meantime, @CDCgov’s guidelines remain unchanged.
