At the start of the UK coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic, this rare point prevalence study revealed that one-third of patients (15 of 45) in a London inpatient rehabilitation unit were found to be infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) but asymptomatic. We report on 8 patients in detail, including their clinical stability, the evolution of their nasopharyngeal viral reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) burden, and their antibody levels over time, revealing the infection dynamics by RT-PCR and serology during the acute phase. Notably, a novel serological test for antibodies against the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 showed that 100% of our asymptomatic cohort remained seropositive 3-6 weeks after diagnosis.
Keywords: COVID-19; Imperial Hybrid DABA; SARS-CoV-2; SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD); anti-NP; anti-RBD; antibodies to nucleoprotein; asymptomatic.
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.