Figure 2.
Nasal viral load was not associated with peak COVID-19 severity or nasal marker levels. A, Viral load quantified by RT-qPCR on nasal swabs from patients with COVID-19 (moderate n = 56, severe n = 14, fatal n = 28) taken 0–20 days after symptom onset. B, Viral load data aligned with the duration of symptoms at the time of sampling (days after symptom onset). A subset of these participants (moderate n = 18, severe n = 6, fatal n = 8) had viral load data and time-matched nasosorption cytokine and chemokine data: (C) viral load grouped by peak COVID-19 severity; and (D) viral load data aligned with duration of symptoms. E, Hierarchically clustered correlation matrix of nasal cytokines and chemokines and nasal viral loads, ranked using the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (RS). Correlations were corrected for multiple testing and nonsignificant correlations are denoted by empty boxes. B and D, Linear regression lines for moderate, severe, and fatal peak COVID-19 severity groups. Abbreviations: COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019; G-CSF, granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor; GM-CSF, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor; IFN-γ, interferon-γ; IL, interleukin; ns, not significant; RT-qPCR, reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction; TNF-α, tumor necrosis factor-α; vWF-A2, von Willebrand factor-A2.