Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Preliminary Research On A Covid-19 Test Strategy To Guide Quarantine Interval In University Students, Jill M. Kolesar, Tyler Gayheart, Lance Poston, Eric Monday, Derek Forster, Elizabeth Belcher, Rani Jaiswal, J. Kirsten Turner, Donna K. Arnett, Eric B. Durbin, Joseph Monroe, Frank Romanelli, Susanne M. Arnold, C. Darrell Jennings, Heidi Weiss, Robert Dipaola

Pharmacy Practice and Science Faculty Publications

Following COVID-19 exposure, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends a 10–14-day quarantine for asymptomatic individuals and more recently a 7-day quarantine with a negative PCR test. A university-based prospective cohort study to determine if early polymerase chain reaction (PCR) negativity predicts day 14 negativity was performed. A total of 741 asymptomatic students in quarantine was screened and 101 enrolled. Nasopharyngeal swabs were tested on days 3 or 4, 5, 7, 10, and 14, and the proportion of concordant negative results for each day versus day 14 with a two-sided 95% exact binomial confidence interval was determined. Rates of concordant …