November 25, 2020

Higher Viral Loads in Asymptomatic COVID-19 Patients Might Be the Invisible Part of the Iceberg

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Clinical Characteristics and Health Care Setting

Keywords (Tags): clinical characteristics

• By comparing viral loads of asymptomatic and symptomatic laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients in samples obtained on admission to a hospital, researchers found that asymptomatic patients had higher SARSCoV-2 viral loads than symptomatic patients. Viral loads decreased with increasing disease severity. Viral loads of patients with at least one comorbidity (i.e., hypertension, diabetes, malignancy, chronic pulmonary disease) were found to be significantly lower than patients with no comorbidity.

Hasanoglu et al. (Nov 24, 2020). Higher Viral Loads in Asymptomatic COVID-19 Patients Might Be the Invisible Part of the Iceberg. Infection. https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-020-01548-8