{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,1]],"date-time":"2026-09-01T23:42:08Z","timestamp":1788306128660,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,3]],"date-time":"2021-02-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1612310400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"sec001\"><jats:title>Objective<\/jats:title><jats:p>Understanding mild to moderate symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is important in order to identify active cases early and thus counteract transmission.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"sec002\"><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>In March 2020, Leipzig University Hospital established an outpatient clinic for patients potentially infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Confirmed cases with mild to moderate symptoms self-isolated at home and were followed-up by daily telephone calls for at least 14 days. Symptoms and course of illness of these patients are reported here.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"sec003\"><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>From March 20 to April 17, 2020, 1460 individuals were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by naso- or oropharyngeal swab for real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Covid-19 was confirmed in 91 (6.2%) patients, of which 87 were included in the final analysis. Patients presented for testing after a mean of 5.9 days (IQR = 2.0\u20138.5). The median age was 37.0 years (IQR = 28.5\u201353), and 48 (55.2%) were female. Five (5.7%) patients required hospital admission during the course of illness. Most frequently reported symptoms were fatigue (n = 64, 74%), cough (n = 58, 67%), and hyposmia\/hypogeusia (n = 44, 51%). In contrast to previous reports, fever occurred in less than a third of patients (n = 25, 29%). By day 14, more than half of the patients had recovered completely (n = 37\/70, 52.9%).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"sec004\"><jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title><jats:p>Fever seems to be less common in patients of relatively young age diagnosed with mild to moderate Covid-19. This suggests that body temperature alone may be an insufficient indicator of SARS-CoV-2 infection.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0246312","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,3]],"date-time":"2021-02-03T19:30:19Z","timestamp":1612380619000},"page":"e0246312","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":21,"title":["Covid-19 in outpatients\u2014Is fever a useful indicator for SARS-CoV-2 infection?"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Anne","family":"Schneider","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3126-7950","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Holger","family":"Kirsten","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Franziska","family":"Lordick","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Florian","family":"Lordick","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6942-5785","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Christoph","family":"L\u00fcbbert","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4335-8884","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Amrei","family":"von Braun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0246312.ref001","article-title":"Investigation of a COVID-19 outbreak in Germany resulting from a single travel-associated primary case: a case series","author":"MM B\u00f6hmer","year":"2020","journal-title":"The Lancet Infectious Diseases"},{"issue":"10","key":"pone.0246312.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"970","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMc2001468","article-title":"Transmission of 2019-nCoV Infection from an Asymptomatic Contact in Germany.","volume":"382","author":"C Rothe","year":"2020","journal-title":"N Engl J Med"},{"issue":"10","key":"pone.0246312.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"929","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMoa2001191","article-title":"First Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus in the United States.","volume":"382","author":"ML Holshue","year":"2020","journal-title":"N Engl J Med"},{"issue":"7809","key":"pone.0246312.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"465","DOI":"10.1038\/s41586-020-2196-x","article-title":"Virological assessment of hospitalized patients with COVID-2019.","volume":"581","author":"R W\u00f6lfel","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref005","unstructured":"SARS-CoV-2 Steckbrief zur Coronavirus-Krankheit-2019 (COVID-19): Stand 22.05.2020 [Internet]. Available from: https:\/\/www.rki.de\/DE\/Content\/InfAZ\/N\/Neuartiges_Coronavirus\/Steckbrief.html."},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref006","article-title":"Mild or Moderate Covid-19.","author":"RT Gandhi","year":"2020","journal-title":"N Engl J Med"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref007","article-title":"Olfactory dysfunction in the COVID-19 outbreak","author":"A Izquierdo-Dominguez","year":"2020","journal-title":"J Investig Allergol Clin Immunol"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref008","article-title":"Tempor\u00e4re Hyposmie bei COVID-19-Patienten.","author":"S Bocksberger","year":"2020","journal-title":"HNO"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref009","article-title":"Olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions as a clinical presentation of mild-to-moderate forms of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19): a multicenter European study.","author":"JR Lechien","year":"2020","journal-title":"Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref010","article-title":"Utility of hyposmia and hypogeusia for the diagnosis of COVID-19","author":"F B\u00e9n\u00e9zit","year":"2020","journal-title":"The Lancet Infectious Diseases"},{"issue":"18","key":"pone.0246312.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1708","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMoa2002032","article-title":"Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China.","volume":"382","author":"W-J Guan","year":"2020","journal-title":"N Engl J Med"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref012","volume-title":"R: R: A language and environment for statistical comuting.","author":"R Core Team","year":"2019"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0246312.ref013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"289","DOI":"10.1111\/j.2517-6161.1995.tb02031.x","article-title":"Controlling the False Discovery Rate: A Practical and Powerful Approach to Multiple Testing","volume":"57","author":"Y Benjamini","year":"1995","journal-title":"Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological)"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"456","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2017.00456","article-title":"Repeated Measures Correlation.","volume":"8","author":"JZ Bakdash","year":"2017","journal-title":"Front Psychol"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref015","article-title":"Clinical characteristics of asymptomatic and symptomatic patients with mild COVID-19","author":"G-U Kim","year":"2020","journal-title":"Clin Microbiol Infect"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref016","article-title":"The characteristics of household transmission of COVID-19","author":"W Li","year":"2020","journal-title":"Clin Infect Dis"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"m1996","DOI":"10.1136\/bmj.m1996","article-title":"Characterization and clinical course of 1000 patients with coronavirus disease 2019 in New York: retrospective case series.","volume":"369","author":"MG Argenziano","year":"2020","journal-title":"BMJ"},{"issue":"10229","key":"pone.0246312.ref018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1014","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(20)30633-4","article-title":"Clinical course and mortality risk of severe COVID-19","volume":"395","author":"P Weiss","year":"2020","journal-title":"The Lancet"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref019","article-title":"A Systematic Review of Asymptomatic Infections with COVID-19","author":"Z Gao","year":"2020","journal-title":"J Microbiol Immunol Infect"},{"key":"pone.0246312.ref020","article-title":"Natural History of Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection","author":"A Sakurai","year":"2020","journal-title":"N Engl J Med"}],"updated-by":[{"DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0251623","type":"correction","label":"Correction","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2021,5,6]],"date-time":"2021-05-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1620259200000}}],"container-title":["PLOS ONE"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0246312","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,23]],"date-time":"2024-08-23T14:43:41Z","timestamp":1724424221000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0246312"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Chiara","family":"Lazzeri","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"editor"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,3]]},"references-count":20,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,3]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0246312","relation":{"correction":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0251623","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["1932-6203"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1932-6203","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,3]]}}}