Diurnal Variation in SARS-CoV-2 PCR Test Results: Test Accuracy May Vary by Time of Day.

ABSTRACT: False negative tests for SARS-CoV-2 are common and have important public health and medical implications. We tested the hypothesis of diurnal variation in viral shedding by assessing the proportion of positive versus negative SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests and cycle time (Ct) values among positive samples by the time of day. Among 86,342 clinical tests performed among symptomatic and asymptomatic patients in a regional health care network in the southeastern United States from March to August 2020, we found evidence for diurnal variation in the proportion of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests, with a peak around 1400 h and 1.7-fold variation over the day after adjustment for age, sex, race, testing location, month, and day of week and lower Ct values durin

SUBMITTER: McNaughton CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8599649 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature