On April 14, Beijing reported a case of newly diagnosed novel coronavirus pneumonia imported from abroad, who was isolated after 14 days and onset after returning home two days later, the diagnosis was confirmed a few days later. On the 15th, the mother, younger brother, and grandfather were also diagnosed.
It is understood that as early as February, there was a case in Liwan, Guangzhou, which was diagnosed after 14 days of quarantine period; on April 7, Ningbo also had a case diagnosed after the expiration of quarantine period.
Many people can’t help but ask, after the quarantine period has passed and the disease has developed, is the 14-day quarantine period really enough?
“Generally speaking, the incubation period of the novel coronavirus is within two weeks, most of them are 1-7 days (or 3-7 days), and very few will exceed 14 days.” Xu Meng, deputy chief physician of the Department of Infectious Diseases of China-Japan Hospital explained, For the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus, if there is no fever after strict 14-day quarantine observation, basically more than 90% or even 99.9% of cases can be ruled out, which means that the 14-day quarantine observation period is basically enough.
In response to the incubation period of the novel coronavirus, on February 9, 2020, the medical preprint magazine medRxiv published a paper “Clinical characteristics of 2019 novel coronavirus infection in China” jointly completed by academicians Zhong Nanshan and other experts. The study found that the median incubation period of the novel coronavirus was 3.0 days (range 0 ~ 24 days).
Does the isolation period need to be adjusted to 24 days or longer? In response, academician Zhong Nanshan once responded on February 11: Only 1 of the 1099 samples was 24 days. It is not scientific enough to use the time reported by only one patient as the longest incubation period of the disease.
“At present, there are still a few cases of morbidity after the isolation period, but for insurance reasons, you should still be cautious after lifting the isolation observation. If you have fever symptoms, you should seek medical treatment in time,” said Dr. Xu Meng.
“Now all medical institutions across the country have fever clinics, if some people do not have a fever or simply have no symptoms, there are many places where nucleic acid testing can be done.” Dr. Xu Meng further stated that Beijing’s prevention and control are still very strict, such as returning from Hubei and those entering from the first point of entry, it requires that the nucleic acid test must be negative after the observation period is over, which is also very necessary.
