Table 8. Results of Viral Culture.

Study ID	Types of participants	Method used for viral culture	Results of viral culture
Ladhani 2020a	Staff and residents of 6 London care homes	All SARS-CoV-2 positive samples with a Ct value of <35 were incubated on Vero E6 mammalian cells and virus detection was confirmed by cytopathic effect (CPE) up to 14 days post-inoculation	87 samples with Ct values <35 were cultured and infectious virus was recovered from all (21 residents and 12 staff). Live virus was isolated up to 13 days after and 12 days before symptom onset among residents and up to 6 days before and 7 days after symptom onset among staff. Higher Ct values was significantly associated with decreasing ability to recover infectious virus (p<0.001). There were no significant differences in virus recovery rates between symptomatic and asymptomatic residents (5/17 [29.4%] vs. 14/33 [42.4%]; P=0.37) and staff (2/6 [33.3%] vs. 10/31 [32.3%]; P=0.96) at the time of testing.
Miller 2021	Household contact of PCR- positive index cases	Not described	Virus culture was carried out for 48 PCR positive swabs. 9 samples were culture positive (6/8 with a Ct value <25, 2/10 with a Ct value 25-<32 and 1/30 with a higher Ct value >32); no PCR positive swabs taken more than 7 days after symptom onset yielded viable virus.
Speake 2020	241 airline passengers some of whom had disembarked from 1 of 3 cruise ships that had recently docked in Sydney Harbour. 6 primary cases initially	Virus culture was attempted for primary samples. Clinical specimens were inoculated in triplicate wells with Vero-E6 cells at 80% confluency, incubated at 37°C in 5% CO2, and inspected for cytopathic effect daily for up to 10 days. Identity was confirmed by in-house PCRs as described for previous sequences.	9/17 of PCR positive samples grew SARS-CoV-2 on viral culture. Sufficient viral RNA was available to generate an adequate sequence for 25 of the 29 samples positive by PCR. 11 passengers had PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and symptom onset within 48 hours of the flight. All 11 passengers had been in the same cabin with symptomatic persons who had culture-positive A2-RP virus strain.
Yang 2020	Home quarantine: 93 recurrent-positive patients; 96 close contacts and 1,200 candidate contacts	Vero-E6 cells were used for virus isolation in a BSL-3 laboratory.	Viral cultures of 4 specimens with Ct <30 were negative