Incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019: new implications for intervention and control.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been causing serious disasters to mankind. The incubation period is a key parameter for epidemic control and also an important basis for epidemic prediction, but its distribution law remains unclear. This paper analyzed the epidemiological information of 787 confirmed non-W...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of Environmental Health Research Vol. 32; no. 8; pp. 1707 - 1716
Main Authors: Huang, Shunxiang, Li, Jing, Dai, Chengguqiu, Tie, Zihan, Xu, Jiazhao, Xiong, Xiang, Hao, Xingjie, Wang, Zhongyi, Lu, Chan
Format: research tables/charts Journal Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Aug2022
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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Summary:The COVID-19 pandemic has been causing serious disasters to mankind. The incubation period is a key parameter for epidemic control and also an important basis for epidemic prediction, but its distribution law remains unclear. This paper analyzed the epidemiological information of 787 confirmed non-Wuhan resident cases, and systematically studied the characteristics of the incubation period of COVID-19 based on the interval-censored data estimation method. The results show that the incubation period of COVID-19 approximately conforms to the Gamma distribution with a mean value of 7.8 (95%CI:7.4–8.5) days and a median value of 7.0 (95%CI:6.7–7.3) days. The incubation period was positively correlated with age and negatively correlated with disease severity. Female cases presented a slightly higher incubation period than that of males. The proportion of infected persons who developed symptoms within 14 days was 91.6%. These results are of great significance to the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic.