Introduction

The first cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were reported in December 2019, in Wuhan, China 1. After a rapid spread worldwide, the disease was declared a pandemic in March 2020. As of August 10, 2020, there have been over 19 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 728,013 deaths 2. In France, the first case of COVID-19 was identified in Bichat Claude Bernard university hospital, in Paris, on January 24, 2020, concomitant with the end of the annual influenza epidemic 3. As in most countries struck by the virus, the first wave of the pandemic was controlled in France due to a national lockdown that began on March 16, 2020. However, new waves are striking again in several countries with initially controlled outbreaks, and the pandemic is still accelerating worldwide 4.
The virus is thus highly likely to continue to circulate for a prolonged period. In such a scenario, the SARS-CoV-2 virus will likely co-circulate with other respiratory viruses (RVs) during the next fall and winter in the northern hemisphere or during the ongoing months in the southern hemisphere 5. Such co-circulation was briefly observed in Northern America and Europe at the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 local outbreaks 6,7. As patients presenting with influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) could be infected by any RV, including SARS-CoV-2, this will raise an additional challenge for patients’ diagnosis and isolation in an emergency department (ED). The looming threat of concurrent SARS-CoV-2 and other RV epidemics is an increasing concern for both physicians and health policies8. Being able to quickly identify and isolate patients who are highly suspected of having COVID-19 is indeed a cornerstone of preventing nosocomial transmission of this new and deadly infection in crowded EDs and other units.
We took advantage of an ongoing prospective study assessing the impact of point-of-care testing with multiplex PCR in our ED to extend the study. We aimed to identify clinical and biological characteristics that help to differentiate COVID-19 from other respiratory viral infections.