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Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Pandemic scenarios like SARS-Cov-2 require rapid information aggregation. In the age of eHealth and data-driven medicine, publicly available symptom tracking tools offer efficient and scalable means of collecting and analyzing large amounts of data. As a result, information gains can be communicated...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Melms, Leander, Falk, Evelyn, Schieffer, Bernhard, Jerrentrup, Andreas, Wagner, Uwe, Matrood, Sami, Schaefer, Jürgen R., Müller, Tobias, Hirsch, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8608328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34807925
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258649
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author Melms, Leander
Falk, Evelyn
Schieffer, Bernhard
Jerrentrup, Andreas
Wagner, Uwe
Matrood, Sami
Schaefer, Jürgen R.
Müller, Tobias
Hirsch, Martin
author_facet Melms, Leander
Falk, Evelyn
Schieffer, Bernhard
Jerrentrup, Andreas
Wagner, Uwe
Matrood, Sami
Schaefer, Jürgen R.
Müller, Tobias
Hirsch, Martin
author_sort Melms, Leander
collection PubMed
description Pandemic scenarios like SARS-Cov-2 require rapid information aggregation. In the age of eHealth and data-driven medicine, publicly available symptom tracking tools offer efficient and scalable means of collecting and analyzing large amounts of data. As a result, information gains can be communicated to front-line providers. We have developed such an application in less than a month and reached more than 500 thousand users within 48 hours. The dataset contains information on basic epidemiological parameters, symptoms, risk factors and details on previous exposure to a COVID-19 patient. Exploratory Data Analysis revealed different symptoms reported by users with confirmed contacts vs. no confirmed contacts. The symptom combination of anosmia, cough and fatigue was the most important feature to differentiate the groups, while single symptoms such as anosmia, cough or fatigue alone were not sufficient. A linear regression model from the literature using the same symptom combination as features was applied on all data. Predictions matched the regional distribution of confirmed cases closely across Germany, while also indicating that the number of cases in northern federal states might be higher than officially reported. In conclusion, we report that symptom combinations anosmia, fatigue and cough are most likely to indicate an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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spelling pubmed-86083282021-11-23 Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic Melms, Leander Falk, Evelyn Schieffer, Bernhard Jerrentrup, Andreas Wagner, Uwe Matrood, Sami Schaefer, Jürgen R. Müller, Tobias Hirsch, Martin PLoS One Research Article Pandemic scenarios like SARS-Cov-2 require rapid information aggregation. In the age of eHealth and data-driven medicine, publicly available symptom tracking tools offer efficient and scalable means of collecting and analyzing large amounts of data. As a result, information gains can be communicated to front-line providers. We have developed such an application in less than a month and reached more than 500 thousand users within 48 hours. The dataset contains information on basic epidemiological parameters, symptoms, risk factors and details on previous exposure to a COVID-19 patient. Exploratory Data Analysis revealed different symptoms reported by users with confirmed contacts vs. no confirmed contacts. The symptom combination of anosmia, cough and fatigue was the most important feature to differentiate the groups, while single symptoms such as anosmia, cough or fatigue alone were not sufficient. A linear regression model from the literature using the same symptom combination as features was applied on all data. Predictions matched the regional distribution of confirmed cases closely across Germany, while also indicating that the number of cases in northern federal states might be higher than officially reported. In conclusion, we report that symptom combinations anosmia, fatigue and cough are most likely to indicate an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. Public Library of Science 2021-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8608328/ /pubmed/34807925 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258649 Text en © 2021 Melms et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Melms, Leander
Falk, Evelyn
Schieffer, Bernhard
Jerrentrup, Andreas
Wagner, Uwe
Matrood, Sami
Schaefer, Jürgen R.
Müller, Tobias
Hirsch, Martin
Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
title Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
title_full Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
title_fullStr Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
title_short Towards a COVID-19 symptom triad: The importance of symptom constellations in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
title_sort towards a covid-19 symptom triad: the importance of symptom constellations in the sars-cov-2 pandemic
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8608328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34807925
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258649
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