Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Aug;81(2):e26-e30.
doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2020.04.018. Epub 2020 Apr 23.

Clinical and epidemiological features of COVID-19 family clusters in Beijing, China

Rui Song  1 , Bing Han  2 , Meihua Song  2 , Lin Wang  2 , Christopher P Conlon  3 , Tao Dong  4 , Di Tian  2 , Wei Zhang  2 , Zhihai Chen  1 , Fujie Zhang  1 , Mang Shi  5 , Xingwang Li  6
Affiliations

Clinical and epidemiological features of COVID-19 family clusters in Beijing, China

Rui Song et al. J Infect. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Background: Since its discovery, SARS-CoV-2 has been spread throughout China before becoming a global pandemic. In Beijing, family clusters are the main mode of human-human transmission accounting for 57.6% of the total confirmed cases.

Method: We present the epidemiological and clinical features of the clusters of three large and one small families.

Result: Our results revealed that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted quickly through contact with index case, and a total of 22/24 infections were observed. Among those infected, 20/22 had mild symptoms and only two had moderate to severe clinical manifestations. Children in the families generally showed milder symptoms. The incubation period varied from 2 to 13 days, and the shedding of virus from the upper respiratory tract lasted from 5 to over 30 days. A prolonged period of virus shedding (>30 days) in upper respiratory tract was observed in 6/24 cases.

Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted quickly in the form of family clusters. While the infection rate is high within the cluster, the disease manifestations, latent period, and virus shedding period varied greatly. We therefore recommend rigorously testing contacts even during the no-symptom phase and consider whether viral shedding has ceased before stopping isolation measures for an individual.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus disease-19; Epidemiological features; Family clusters; SARS-CoV-2.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Fig. 1
Detailed epidemiological and clinical timelines for family clusters A (A), B (B), C (C), and D (D). PCR positive timelines for each family members are shown below the main timeline. And the timelines were highlighted yellow for those who remained PCR positive at the end of this study (Mar 6th).
Figure 2
Fig. 2
The duration of incubation period (blue bar) and PCR positive days (orange bar) for each family members. Incubation period is defined as the period (days) from contacting the index case to the time the patient is PCR positive or shows any disease symptoms.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Situation dashboard – by WHO. Available at:https://who.sprinklr.com/. Accessed 13 April 2020.
    1. Sohrabi C. World Health Organization declares Global Emergency: A review of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Int J Surg. 2020 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mahase E. Coronavirus covid-19 has killed more people than SARS and MERS combined, despite lower case fatality rate. Bmj. 2020;368:m641. - PubMed
    1. COVID-19 family clusters in Beijing (news report). Available at:https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2020-02-10/doc-iimxxstf0313909.shtml. Accessed 12 February 2020.
    1. Chan J.F. A familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a study of a family cluster. Lancet. 2020 - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms