Symptoms that predict positive COVID-19 testing and hospitalization: an analysis of 9,000 patients

ABSTRACT Purpose To develop a reliable tool that predicts which patients are most likely to be COVID-19 positive and which ones have an increased risk of hospitalization. Methods From February 2020 to April 2021, trained nurses recorded age, gender, and symptoms in an outpatient COVID-19 testing center. All positive patients were followed up by phone for 14 days or until symptom-free. We calculated the symptoms odds ratio for positive results and hospitalization and proposed a “random forest” machine-learning model to predict positive testing. Results A total of 8,998 patients over 16 years old underwent COVID-19 RT-PCR, with 1,914 (21.3%) positives. Fifty patients needed hospitalization (2.6% of positives), and three died (0.15%). Most common symptoms were: cough, headache, sore throat, coryza, fever, myalgia (57%, 51%, 44%, 36%, 35%, 27%, respectively). Cough, fever, and myalgia predicted positive COVID-19 test, while others behaved as protective factors. The best predictors of positivity were fever plus anosmia/ageusia (OR=6.31), and cough plus anosmia/ageusia (OR=5.82), both p<0.0001. Our random forest model had an ROC-AUC of 0.72 (specificity=0.70, sensitivity=0.61, PPV=0.38, NPV=0.86). Having steady fever during the first days of infection and persistent dyspnea increased the risk of hospitalization (OR=6.66, p<0.0001 and OR=3.13, p=0.003, respectively), while anosmia-ageusia (OR=0.36, p=0.009) and coryza (OR=0.31, p=0.014) were protective. Conclusion Present study and algorithm may help identify patients at higher risk of having SARS-COV-2 (online calculator http://wdchealth.covid-map.com/shiny/calculator/ ), and also disease severity and hospitalization based on symptoms presence, pattern, and duration, which can help physicians and health care providers.