Population-level median cycle threshold (Ct) values for asymptomatic COVID-19 cases can predict the trajectory of future cases

Naila Shoaib, Asim Iqbal, Farhad Ali Shah, Wajeeha Zainab, Maham Qasim, Noore Zerqoon, Muhammad Omer Naseem, Rimsha Munir and Nousheen Zaidi

PLOS ONE, 2023, vol. 18, issue 3, 1-8

Abstract: Background: Recent studies indicate that the population-level SARS-CoV-2 cycle threshold (Ct) values can inform the trajectory of the pandemic. The presented study investigates the potential of Ct values in predicting the future of COVID-19 cases. We also determined whether the presence of symptoms could change the correlation between Ct values and future cases. Methods: We examined the individuals (n = 8660) that consulted different sample collection points of a private diagnostic center in Pakistan for COVID-19 testing between June 2020 and December 2021. The medical assistant collected clinical and demographic information. The nasopharyngeal swab specimens were taken from the study participants and real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in these samples. Results: We observed that median Ct values display significant temporal variations, which show an inverse relationship with future cases. The monthly overall median Ct values negatively correlated with the number of cases occurring one month after specimen collection (r = -0.588, p

Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281899 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 81899&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0281899

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281899

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().