There is substantial interest in using presenting symptoms to prioritize testing for COVID-19 and establish symptom-based surveillance. However, little is currently known about the specificity of COVID-19 symptoms. To assess the feasibility of symptom-based screening for COVID-19, we used data from tests for common respiratory viruses and SARS-CoV-2 in our health system to measure the ability to correctly classify virus test results based on presenting symptoms. Based on these results, symptom-based screening may not be an effective strategy to identify individuals who should be tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection or to obtain a leading indicator of new COVID-19 cases.

人们对利用出现的症状来优先检测 COVID-19 并建立基于症状的监测非常感兴趣。然而，目前人们对 COVID-19 症状的特异性知之甚少。为了评估基于症状的 COVID-19 筛查的可行性，我们使用了我们卫生系统中常见呼吸道病毒和 SARS-CoV-2 检测的数据来衡量根据症状对病毒检测结果进行正确分类的能力。根据这些结果，基于症状的筛查可能不是识别应接受 SARS-CoV-2 感染检测的个人或获取新的 COVID-19 病例先行指标的有效策略。