If you feel sick, what are the chances it's the coronavirus?
Researchers from the Los Angeles Departments of Public Health and Health Services and the Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center tested everyone who presented with mild flu-like illness to the emergency room or urgent care on March 12, 13, 15, and 16. They published their results yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Their results are published as a research letter, so the publication is short and light on details. They don't describe how they categorized mild flu-like illness. However, the CDC lists flu symptoms as cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headaches, and fatigue. Some but not all people will have a fever, and occasionally the flu is accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.
In Los Angeles, the researchers ran 131 tests and found 7 positives for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. That means the chances of having COVID-19 in this cohort when presenting with mild flu-like illness were 5.3%.
Six of the seven COVID-19 patients had a fever, five had muscle pain, and only one had a cough. All seven tested negative for the flu and for a related virus, the respiratory syncytial virus.
It is important to realize the proportions could be very different in other groups of people. For example the chances could be much higher if you live in New York City.
In fact, the proportion even in LA is probably much higher today than it was when the data was collected in mid-March. The day before the data collection, the entire state of California only had 177 cases. Today, the state has almost ten thousand, and Los Angeles County alone has 3,518.
The best lessons to learn from this are probably as follows:
If you live in an area where the reported cases are low, you probably have a 5% chance of having COVID-19 if you have a fever, muscle pain, or cough. You only need one of those to consider the chances 5%.
If you live in an area where the reported cases are low, expect that to last for 2-3 weeks. Living in New York City, all I needed to do this entire time was know what my city would look like in 2-3 weeks by looking at Italy. Just look at the increase in LA County, and it's clearly lagging a little behind NYC. I wouldn't expect this to be different anywhere.
Stay safe,
Chris
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Disclaimer
I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice. I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in conducting and interpreting research related to my field. Please consult your physician before doing anything for prevention or treatment of COVID-19, and please seek the help of a physician immediately if you believe you may have COVID-19.
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