Int J Environ Health Res . Incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019: new implications for intervention and control

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Int J Environ Health Res


. 2021 Apr 4;1-9.
doi: 10.1080/09603123.2021.1905781. Online ahead of print.
Incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019: new implications for intervention and control


Shunxiang Huang ¹ , Jing Li ¹ , Chengguqiu Dai ² , Zihan Tie ¹ , Jiazhao Xu ¹ , Xiang Xiong ¹ , Xingjie Hao ² , Zhongyi Wang ³ , Chan Lu ⁴



Affiliations

• PMID: 33818217
• DOI: 10.1080/09603123.2021.1905781

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019; covid-19; incubation period; interval-censored; intervention and control; pandemic.