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Comment
. 2020 Sep-Oct:37:101832.
doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.101832. Epub 2020 Aug 5.

Body temperature screening to identify SARS-CoV-2 infected young adult travellers is ineffective

Michel Bielecki  1 , Giovanni Andrea Gerardo Crameri  2 , Patricia Schlagenhauf  3 , Thomas Werner Buehrer  2 , Jeremy Werner Deuel  4
Affiliations
Comment

Body temperature screening to identify SARS-CoV-2 infected young adult travellers is ineffective

Michel Bielecki et al. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2020 Sep-Oct.
No abstract available

Keywords: Coronavirus Disease-19; Fever; Screening; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
(A) Probability density of temperature of healthy controls (black, n = 703 measurements of 132 individuals) and of patients presenting symptomatically and testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 by nasopharyngeal swab at the time of presentation (red, n = 81). While the temperature of patients with COVID-19 was significantly higher than of healthy controls, the curves overlap considerably. (B) Sensitivity and specificity of temperature as a screening tool. While a temperature cut-off value of 37.1% does allow identification of 63% of the cases, the specificity is only 95% and probably over-estimated. A fever cut-off of 38 °C only allows identification of the minority of cases, while an even higher cut-off value of 38.5 °C misses 92% of all COVID-19 patients at the time of presentation. (C) Longitudinal change of temperature in 84 patients with COVID-19. Temperature curves of individual patients. Fever (>= 38 °C is shown in red). No patient had a fever after day 4. (D) Histogram of the number fever-days with at least one measurement >38 °C of 84 patients. 83% of our cohort never exhibited fever (0 days > 38°).
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Comment on

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