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At what point in the clinical course of an infectious disease is the pathogenic agent most transmissible? The answer varies. Influenza is most transmissible at or just before the onset of symptoms, whereas SARS is most transmissible at 7 to 10 days after symptom onset.
A team from Wuhan, China, created models based on data from two different studies of patients with COVID-19. First, they obtained 414 serial throat swabs from 94 moderately ill patients, starting at symptom onset and continuing for the next 32 days. Second, they obtained data from 77 transmission pairs and estimated an incubation period of 5.2 days. The researchers found the highest viral loads on throat swabs collected at symptom onset; the loads rapidly declined during the n…