Table 1. Serial changes in viral load observed for a patient with COVID-19.
| HD 3 | HD 6 | HD 8 | HD 10 | HD 13 | HD 15 | HD 17 | HD 20 | HD 21 | HD 27 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pharyngeal swab | + | + | − | − | + | − | + | − | − | |
| RdRP assay (Ct cutoff of 40) | 36.98 | 28.91 | UD | UD | 32.85 | UD | 32 | UD | UD | |
| Sputum | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | – | ||
| RdRP assay (Ct cutoff of 35) | 27.23 | 25.42 | 26.44 | 22.36 | 31.2 | 28.66 | 31.79 | UD | ||
| Pleural fluid | + | − | ||||||||
| RdRP assay (Ct cutoff of 35) | 34.51 | UD |
COVID-19 was confirmed by RT-PCR: pharyngeal swab for Allplex 2019-nCoV Assay (Seegene, Inc, Seoul, Korea) and sputum and pleural fluid samples for PowerChek SARS-CoV-2 Real-time PCR Kit (KogeneBiotech, Seoul, Korea), respectively.
COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019; HD, hospital day; RdRP, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase; Ct, cycle threshold; +, positive; −, negative; UD, undetected; RT-PCR polymerase chain reaction; SARS-CoV-2, syndrome coronavirus 2.