Symptoms associated with a COVID-19 infection among a non-hospitalized cohort in Vienna.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Most clinical studies report the symptoms experienced by those infected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) via patients already hospitalized. Here we analyzed the symptoms experienced outside of a hospital setting.

Methods

The Vienna Social Fund (FSW; Vienna, Austria), the Public Health Services of the City of Vienna (MA15) and the private company Symptoma collaborated to implement Vienna's official online COVID-19 symptom checker. Users answered 12 yes/no questions about symptoms to assess their risk for COVID-19. They could also specify their age and sex, and whether they had contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Depending on the assessed risk of COVID-19 positivity, a SARS-CoV‑2 nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) was performed. In this publication, we analyzed which factors (symptoms, sex or age) are associated with COVID-19 positivity. We also trained a classifier to correctly predict COVID-19 positivity from the collected data.

Results

Between 2 November 2020 and 18 November 2021, 9133 people experiencing COVID-19-like symptoms were assessed as high risk by the chatbot and were subsequently tested by a NAAT. Symptoms significantly associated with a positive COVID-19 test were malaise, fatigue, headache, cough, fever, dysgeusia and hyposmia. Our classifier could successfully predict COVID-19 positivity with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.74.

Conclusion

This study provides reliable COVID-19 symptom statistics based on the general population verified by NAATs.

SUBMITTER: Munsch N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9007045 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature