Incubation period of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Busan, South Korea

The assessment of the incubation period, which is the period between the infection and the illness onset, is essential to identify the sufficient isolation period for infectious diseases. In South Korea, a few cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were identified after the 14-day self-qua...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of infection and chemotherapy : official journal of the Japan Society of Chemotherapy 2020-09, Vol.26 (9), p.1011-1013
Main Authors: Lee, Hansol, Kim, Kyungtae, Choi, Kwonkyu, Hong, Sangbum, Son, Hyunjin, Ryu, Sukhyun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Coronavirus
Coronavirus Infections
COVID-19
Female
Humans
Incubation period
Infectious Disease Incubation Period
Korea
Log-normal distribution
Male
Middle Aged
Outbreak
Pandemics
Pneumonia, Viral
Republic of Korea
Young Adult
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Summary:The assessment of the incubation period, which is the period between the infection and the illness onset, is essential to identify the sufficient isolation period for infectious diseases. In South Korea, a few cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were identified after the 14-day self-quarantine program, and the length of this quarantine has raised controversial issues for the Korean public health professionals. We estimated the COVID-19 incubation period using the log-normal distribution from publicly available data. The data were obtained from the press release of the Busan city department of public health and news reports. We collected and analysed information for 47 patients with a median age of 30. We estimated that the median incubation period was three days (95% Confidence Interval, 0.6–8.2). We also did not find any significant difference in the incubation period between males and females. Our findings indicate that a 14-day self-quarantine program should be sufficient to prevent spreading in the infection of suspected individuals with COVID-19 in the community.
ISSN:1341-321X
1437-7780
DOI:10.1016/j.jiac.2020.06.018