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. 2020 Dec 28;35(50):e435.
doi: 10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e435.

The Serial Interval of COVID-19 in Korea: 1,567 Pairs of Symptomatic Cases from Contact Tracing

Kwan Hong  1   2 , Sujin Yum  1   2 , Jeehyun Kim  1   2 , Byung Chul Chun  1   3
Affiliations

The Serial Interval of COVID-19 in Korea: 1,567 Pairs of Symptomatic Cases from Contact Tracing

Kwan Hong et al. J Korean Med Sci. .

Abstract

Although coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an ongoing pandemic, the mean serial interval was measured differently across nations. Through the Korean national COVID-19 contact tracing system, we were able to investigate personal contacts in all symptomatic cases in Korea from January 20 to August 3, 2020. The mean serial interval was calculated by the duration between the symptom onset of the infector and infectee, and became shorter after the case definition changed to include not-imported cases in Korea on February 20, 2020. The mean serial interval before and after this fifth case definition was 6.12 and 3.93 days based on the infectors' symptom onset date, respectively, and 4.02 days in total with the median of 3 days. Older age and women lead to longer serial intervals.

Keywords: COVID-19; Contact Tracing; Coronavirus; Disease Transmission; Epidemiology; Serial Interval.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. The trend of mean serial intervals by the onset date of infectors.
COVID-19 = coronavirus disease 2019.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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