Table 1.
Sociodemographic characteristics and disease severity, median number of nasopharyngeal swabs per subject with RT-PCR assay for SARS-CoV-2, number (and proportion) of subjects with at least one negative nasopharyngeal swab and number (and proportion) of these subjects who received viral clearance confirmation on retesting in the cohort of subjects resident in the province of Reggio Emilia and diagnosed with COVID-19 before 22 March 2020 and followed up until 22 April 2020
| Overall sample tested N (%) | Total swabs per subject | First negative swab | Confirmed negative swab | |
| (median, range) | N negative (%) | N° confirmed / N° retested (%) |
||
| Total | 1162 | 3 (1–9) | 704 (60.6) | 436/554 (78.7) |
| Deaths of which death before start of follow-up |
172 (14.8) | |||
| 110 | ||||
| Sex | ||||
| M | 652 (56.1) | 3 (1–8) | 394 (60.4) | 257/321 (80.1) |
| F | 510 (43.9) | 3 (1–9) | 310 (60.8) | 179/233 (76.8) |
| Age Mean (SD) |
60.7 (16.3) | |||
| Age categories | ||||
| <50 | 303 (26.1) | 4 (1–8) | 215 (71.0) | 147/176 (83.5) |
| 50–59 | 258 (22.2) | 3 (1–8) | 184 (71.3) | 113/151 (74.8) |
| 60–69 | 229 (19.7) | 3 (1–9) | 154 (67.2) | 89/120 (74.2) |
| 70–79 | 193 (16.6) | 3 (1–8) | 98 (50.8) | 57/72 (79.2) |
| ≥80 | 179 (15.4) | 2 (1–7) | 53 (29.6) | 30/35 (85.7) |
| Citizenship | ||||
| Italian | 1108 (95.4) | 3 (1–9) | 667 (60.2) | 418/530 (78.9) |
| Foreign | 54 (4.6) | 3 (1–7) | 37 (68.5) | 18/24 (75.0) |
| Disease severity | ||||
| No access to Emergency Department or hospital | 353 (30.4) | 4 (1–9) | 271 (76.8) | 174/223 (78.2) |
| Emergency Department use only | 232 (20.0) | 3 (1–7) | 155 (66.8) | 96/124 (77.4) |
| Hospitalisation* | 577 (49.6) | 3 (1–8) | 278 (48.2) | 166/207 (80.2) |
*Hospitalisation excluding patients using Emergency Department only AND patients with no hospitalisation and no Emergency Department use.
ED, Emergency Department.