Introduction
The World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March 2020 after the emergence of an infectious disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019 that was caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) (Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report – 89. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2020). In Korea, as of May 15, 2020, there were a cumulative total of 10,991 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 260 deaths (Center for Systems Science and Engineering. Coronavirus COVID-19 global cases. 2019). The relationship between the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 and the severity of COVID-19 has not been studied. Only a few studies have compared the viral kinetics and chest radiograph score between patients with mild and those with severe COVID-19.
Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the viral kinetics of COVID-19 patients diagnosed at Chosun University Hospital, Gwangju, Korea to compare the viral load between patients with mild and those with severe COVID-19.