A longitudinal study on symptom duration and 60-day clinical course in non-hospitalised COVID-19 cases in Berlin, Germany, March to May, 2020

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and has spread across the globe. As infections peaked across many countries, more has become known about the epidemiological features of the pandemic, the characteristics of those infected and the risk factors associated with hospital or intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and deaths [1-3].

However, detailed investigations on the temporal course of COVID-19 symptoms during the early stages of the pandemic have mostly focused on hospitalised patients or patients admitted to ICU even though the vast majority of infected patients do not require inpatient treatment. The characteristics and duration of symptoms of these patients, who are often referred to as having a mild course of disease and who mostly stay in home isolation or in community health centres during the acute phase of disease, have more recently become the subject of investigation [4-9]. These recent findings provide evidence that a subset of patients, including those with a mild course of disease, report persistent symptoms that result in long-term adverse health effects [4-9].

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence, duration and temporal dynamics of clinical symptoms in non-hospitalised COVID-19 patients to better understand the clinical spectrum and disease duration among this group of COVID-19 patients at the onset of the pandemic.