Clinical Infectious Diseases 2020

Clinical Infectious Diseases
BRIEF REPORT
COVID-19 Transmission Within a Index 2 and cases 1–4 were all admitted to hospital as per-
sons under investigation on the day index 1’s diagnosis was con-
Family Cluster by Presymptomatic firmed. The daughter (case 1) presented with fever and cough
Carriers in China on 27 January, and was diagnosed with COVID-19 after being
tested positive by RT-PCR using throat swab specimen.
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Guoqing Qian,1,a, Naibin Yang,1,a Ada Hoi Yan Ma,2 Liping Wang,1 Guoxiang Li,1
Xueqin Chen,3 and Xiaomin Chen1 On 1 February, index 2 tested positive via throat swab
1
Department of Internal General Medicine, Ningbo First Hospital, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, RT-PCR but stayed asymptomatic. Case 1’s husband (case
China, 2Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, 2) started to suffer fever and was laboratory-diagnosed on the
Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China, and 3Department of Chinese Traditional Medicine, Ningbo
First Hospital, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China same day. The 6-year-old daughter (case 3) showed no symp-
toms and tested negative 3 times for throat swab and neg-
We report a family cluster of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID- ative once for rectal swab by RT-PCR, and remained clear in
19) caused by a presymptomatic case. There were 9 family mem- chest computed tomographic scans. She was the only family
bers, including 8 laboratory-confirmed with COVID-19, and a
member who was uninfected by SARS-CoV-2. The 13-month-
6-year-old child had no evidence of infection. Among the 8 pa-
old daughter (case 4) was asymptomatic but was laboratory-
tients, 1 adult and a 13-month-old infant were asymptomatic,
and 1 adult was diagnosed as having severe pneumonia. confirmed on 5 February.
Keywords. COVID-19; family cluster; presymptomatic On 23 January 23, before index 1 showed any symptoms,
carriers.
cases 1–4 had dinner with case 2’s mother (case 5), father (case
6), and grandmother (case 7). They were admitted to hos-
pital as persons under observation on 1 February, and were
Since the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome corona- laboratory-confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 on 2, 5,
virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in early December 2019, and 6 February, respectively. Case 6 was a 57-year-old man
the number of cases has been rapidly increasing [1]. Chan and who was transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) as the
colleagues reported SARS-CoV-2 in a family setting with per- symptoms got worse and the level lactic acid continued to in-
son-to-person transmission [2]. We are here reporting a family crease (Figure 1).
cluster of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission This series of laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 was
and clinical features in Zhejiang, China, after a visit to a temple. diagnosed in the Zhejiang province, which lies outside Wuhan.
On 19 January, a couple participated in a temple activity to First, although the family members were from 3 households,
celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival. The 58-year-old woman they all were infected directly or indirectly from the same 2
(index 1) fell ill with fever, fatigue, and headache on 24 January. index patients. The clinical features were diverse across pa-
However, the 60-year-old man (index 2) was without any tients; in particular, there were 2 asymptomatic patients and
symptoms. 1 patient whose symptoms were so severe that he had to be
In between the temple visit and the onset of symptoms, the transferred to ICU. Second, this cluster demonstrated that
couple’s daughter, son-in-law, and 2 grandchildren (cases 1–4) COVID-19 is transmittable during the incubation period, as
had visited and stayed with them from 20 to 23 January. Index the daughter and her family caught the disease during the in-
1 went to hospital on 26 January, and was diagnosed with cubation period of index 1 and index 2. Third, patients can
COVID-19 on 29 January by reverse-transcription polymerase stay asymptomatic, such as index 2 and case 4 in this cluster.
chain reaction (RT-PCR). Given that Zou et al [3] found that the viral load of sympto-
matic and asymptomatic patients were similar, asymptomatic
patients can still infect others. These “silent patients” may re-

Received 11 March 2020; editorial decision 14 March 2020; accepted 20 March 2020;
published online March 23, 2020. main undiagnosed and be able to spread the disease to large
a
G. Q. and N. Y. contributed equally to this work.
numbers of people. Last, it appears that children may not be
Correspondence: X. Chen, Department of General Internal Medicine, Ningbo First Hospital,
No. 59 Liuting St, Haishu District, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China ([email protected]). as susceptible to this new virus as adults and elderly persons,
Clinical Infectious Diseases® 2020;XX(XX):1–2 and they may fare better when they have contracted the virus.
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases As reported in this family cluster, the 6-year-old child was
Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ not infected and the 13-month-old was infected but stayed
by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any asymptomatic.
medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work
is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected]
In summary, there are variations across individuals in the
DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciaa316 clinical manifestations of COVID-19, indicating that we should
BRIEF REPORT • cid 2020:XX (XX XXXX) • 1
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Figure 1. Timeline of exposure to index patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China. Abbreviations: F, female; ICU, intensive care unit; M, male; PCR,
polymerase chain reaction.
pay attention to how to prevent people from being infected by Financial support. This work was supported by the Natural Science
Foundation of Zhejiang Province (grant number Q17H010001).
asymptomatic patients and patients who are in the incubation
Potential conflicts of interest. The authors: No reported conflicts of
period. interest. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of
Potential Conflicts of Interest.
Notes
Author contributions. L. W. and Xue. C. collected the data. Xiao C.,
References
G. Q., and N. Y. conceived the idea. G. Q. and N. Y. drafted the manuscript.
1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneu-
A. H. Y. M. reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the
monia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med 2020; 382:727–33.
final manuscript. 2. Chan JF-W, Yuan S, Kok K-H, et al. A familial cluster of pneumonia associated
Acknowledgments. The study has been reviewed and approved by the with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a
Ningbo City First Hospital, Medical Ethical Committees (2020-R018). study of a family cluster. Lancet 2020. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30154–9.
Disclaimer. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and 3. Zou L, Ruan F, Huang M, et al. SARS-CoV-2 viral load in upper respiratory spe-
analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. cimens of infected patients. New Engl J Med 2020. doi:10.1056/NEJMc2001737.
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