
Universal Screening for SARS-CoV-2 in Women Admitted for Delivery - dfsegoat
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316
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guscost
Unless there are factors making this population _much_ more susceptible (more
hospital visits?) and _much_ more likely to be asymptomatic, this is quite a
bombshell:

> Between March 22 and April 4, 2020, a total of 215 pregnant women delivered
> infants at the New York–Presbyterian Allen Hospital and Columbia University
> Irving Medical Center . All the women were screened on admission for
> symptoms of Covid-19. Four women (1.9%) had fever or other symptoms of
> Covid-19 on admission, and all 4 women tested positive for SARS-CoV-2
> (Figure 1). Of the 211 women without symptoms, all were afebrile on
> admission. Nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained from 210 of the 211 women
> (99.5%) who did not have symptoms of Covid-19; of these women, 29 (13.7%)
> were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, 29 of the 33 patients who were positive
> for SARS-CoV-2 at admission (87.9%) had no symptoms of Covid-19 at
> presentation.

> Of the 29 women who had been asymptomatic but who were positive for SARS-
> CoV-2 on admission, fever developed in 3 (10%) before postpartum discharge
> (median length of stay, 2 days). Two of these patients received antibiotics
> for presumed endomyometritis (although 1 patient did not have localizing
> symptoms), and 1 patient was presumed to be febrile due to Covid-19 and
> received supportive care. One patient with a swab that was negative for
> SARS-CoV-2 on admission became symptomatic postpartum; repeat SARS-CoV-2
> testing 3 days after the initial test was positive.

