• Satoshi Kutsuna, Tadaki Suzuki, Kayoko Hayakawa, Shinya Tsuzuki, Yusuke Asai, Tetsuya Suzuki, Satoshi Ide, Keiji Nakamura, Yuki Moriyama, Noriko Kinoshita, Naoto Hosokawa, Ryosuke Osawa, Ryosuke Yamamuro, Yutaro Akiyama, Yusuke Miyazato, Hidetoshi Nomoto, Takato Nakamoto, Masayuki Ota, Sho Saito, Masahiro Ishikane, Shinichiro Morioka, Kei Yamamoto, Mugen Ujiie, Mari Terada, Fukumi Nakamura-Uchiyama, Toshinori Sahara, Masahiro Sano, Akifumi Imamura, Noritaka Sekiya, Kazuaki Fukushima, Akihiko Kawana, Yuji Fujikura, Tomoya Sano, Ryohei Suematsu, Naoya Sakamoto, Kaoru Nagata, Tomoyuki Kato, Harutaka Katano, Takaji Wakita, Haruhito Sugiyama, Norihiro Kokudo, and Norio Ohmagari.
• Disease Control and Prevention Center, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
• Open Forum Infect Dis. 2020 Jul 1; 7 (7): ofaa243.

BackgroundSevere acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was found to be the causative microorganism of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which started to spread in Wuhan, China. This study was to evaluate the effectiveness of questionnaire, symptoms-based screening, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening of returnees from COVID-19-endemic areas on a chartered flight, to examine the proportion of infected persons and the proportion of asymptomatic persons among infected persons who returned from Wuhan.MethodsA retrospective cohort study was done in 7 tertiary medical institutions in Japan. A total of 566 Japanese who returned from Wuhan participated in the study.ResultsOverall, 11 of the 566 passengers had a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR result for pharyngeal swabs and 6 were asymptomatic. Only fever differed between SARS-CoV-2-positive and -negative individuals (P < .043). Six of the 11 PCR-positive individuals were asymptomatic; 4 remained positive on day 10, and 1 asymptomatic person tested positive up to day 27. Two of the 11 were negative on the first PCR test and positive on the second.ConclusionsOur results will be important insights on screening returnees from locked-down cities, as well as providing important data on the proportion of asymptomatic individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2. A 13-day observation period and a second round of PCR may be effective to screen patients, including asymptomatic infections.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America.

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