Miao 2020.

Study characteristics
Patient Sampling	163 consecutive adult patients with suspected COVID‐19 from three tertiary hospitals in two provinces outside Hubei province
Patient characteristics and setting	Setting: tertiary hospitals Site: 2 provinces outside Hubei province; fever emergency clinics at Shanghai General Hospital, High‐tech hospital (First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University) and People's hospital of Yinchun City from 12 January‐13 February 2020 Country: China Symptoms and severity: suspected of COVID‐19 visiting fever emergency clinics; the most common symptoms on admission were fever (49 (79.0%)), dry cough (37 (59.7%)), fatigue or myalgia (15 (24.2%)) Demographics: 62 cases confirmed and 102 cases unconfirmed. Mean age confirmed group: 43.8 (SD 13.9; range 19‐77); mean age unconfirmed group: 41.3 (SD 14.7; range 19‐81); confirmed group 32 (51.6%) men and non confirmed group 68 (67.3%) men Time since onset of symptoms was 7.0 (3.5‐9.0) days (confirmed group) and 6.0 (4.0‐9.0) days (unconfirmed group). Compared with participants in unconfirmed group, participants in confirmed group had significantly higher proportion of Wuhan residence history, having visited Wuhan, clustering diseases and dry cough
Index tests	WBC count, PCT, ALT, LDH, creatinine kinase, troponin I. Table 4
Target condition and reference standard(s)	RT‐PCR. sample: nasopharyngeal swabs or sputum specimens; the confirmed group was defined as a positive result of at least 1 RT‐PCR test for SARS‐CoV‐2. The unconfirmed group was defined as all results of RT‐PCR tests were negative
Flow and timing	Time interval not reported; all participants received the same reference standard; no missing data or uninterpretable results
Comparative
Notes
Methodological quality
Item	Authors' judgement	Risk of bias	Applicability concerns
DOMAIN 1: Patient Selection
Was a consecutive or random sample of patients enrolled?	Yes
Was a case‐control design avoided?	Yes
Did the study avoid inappropriate exclusions?	Yes
Could the selection of patients have introduced bias?		Low risk
Are there concerns that the included patients and setting do not match the review question?			Low concern
DOMAIN 2: Index Test (All tests)
Were the index test results interpreted without knowledge of the results of the reference standard?	Unclear
If a threshold was used, was it pre‐specified?	Unclear
Could the conduct or interpretation of the index test have introduced bias?		Unclear risk
Are there concerns that the index test, its conduct, or interpretation differ from the review question?			Low concern
DOMAIN 3: Reference Standard
Is the reference standards likely to correctly classify the target condition?	No
Were the reference standard results interpreted without knowledge of the results of the index tests?	Unclear
Could the reference standard, its conduct, or its interpretation have introduced bias?		High risk
Are there concerns that the target condition as defined by the reference standard does not match the question?			High
DOMAIN 4: Flow and Timing
Was there an appropriate interval between index test and reference standard?	Unclear
Did all patients receive the same reference standard?	Yes
Were all patients included in the analysis?	Yes
Could the patient flow have introduced bias?		Low risk