Figure S1.

A diagram of current CT applications for COVID-19 management in China. In some published studies, chest CT studies’ limitations have not been explained in detail by the original authors and have not been carefully scrutinized by readers, this has led to a substantial increase of chest CTs. In application-1, it can be seen that if appropriate protocols are followed, then the clinical management for cases in (A) and cases in (B) would be the same. In application-3, chest CT’s role in COVID management will be limited by CT’s sensitivity and low prevalence of COVID-19 in the targeted population (estimated to be 0.77% in Wuhan general population, with majority of mild severity; the prevalence is much lower in other parts of China). Note in application-3, due to limited space, the normal cases are vastly under-represented in this graph.