SARS-CoV-2 respiratory viral loads and association with clinical and biological features

Abstract

To determine the distribution of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) respiratory viral loads (VL) during the acute phase of infection and their correlation with clinical presentation and inflammation-related biomarkers. Nasopharyngeal swabs from 453 adult SARS-CoV-2-infected patients from the Department of Infectious Diseases, Besançon, France, were collected at the time of admission or consultation for reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis. Clinical information and concentrations of biological parameters (C-reactive protein [CRP], fibrinogen, lactate dehydrogenase [LDH], prealbumin) were noticed. Mean respiratory VL homogeneously decreased from 7.2 log10 copies/ml (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.6–7.8) on the first day of symptoms until 4.6 log10 copies/ml (95% CI: 3.8–5.4) at day 10 (slope = −0.24; R2 =.95). VL were poorly correlated with COVID-19 symptoms and outcome, excepted for dyspnea and anosmia, which were significantly associated with lower VL (p