COVID-19 Test Strategy to Guide Quarantine Interval in University Student.

Background: Following COVID-19 exposure, the CDC recommends a 10-14 day quarantine for asymptomatic individuals and more recently a 7 day quarantine with a negative PCR test. We performed a university-based prospective student cohort study to determine if early PCR negativity predicts day 14 negativity.

Methods: We enrolled 101 asymptomatic, quarantining, students, performed nasopharyngeal swabs for viral testing on days 3 or 4, 5, 7, 10 and 14 and determined the proportion of concordant negative results for each day versus day 14 with a two-sided 95% exact binomial confidence interval.