SynthesisBMC infectious diseases2021
Serial interval and incubation period of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in BMC infectious diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 102 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
102 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 381 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assessing changes in incubation period, serial interval, and generation time of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Rapid review and meta-analysis of serial intervals for SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Pooled it
- COVID-19 and the Immune Response: A Multi-Phasic Approach to the Treatment of COVID-19.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Examining protective effects of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies after vaccination or monoclonal antibody administration.Nature communications · 2023Trial
- Efficacy and safety of a single dose of casirivimab and imdevimab for the prevention of COVID-19 over an 8-month period: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2022Trial
- Generation time in a discrete epidemic model with asymptomatic carriers: beyond geometric waiting times.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2027Article
- VIBES: A multiscale modeling approach integrating within-host and between-hosts dynamics in epidemics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Review
- Contrasting pre-vaccine COVID-19 waves in Italy through functional data analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Models for SARS-CoV-2 health policies: social distancing amid vaccination and virus variants.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Nonparametric serial interval estimation with uniform mixtures.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- The Covid-19 hospitalization risk associated with air pollution in New York state counties after the 2023 Quebec wildfires.Journal of public health research · 2025Article
- A novel framework for inferring dynamic infectious disease transmission with graph attention: a COVID-19 case study in Korea.BMC public health · 2025Article
- A quantum mechanics-based framework for infectious disease modeling.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Impact of non-pharmacological interventions on the first wave of COVID-19 in Portugal 2020.Heliyon · 2025Article
- Clinical Characteristics of COVID-19-Related Reversible Cerebral Vasoconstriction Syndrome: A Systematic Review of Case Series.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Time-varying reproduction number estimation: fusing compartmental models with generalized additive models.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Comparing lagged impacts of mobility changes and environmental factors on COVID-19 waves in rural and urban India: A Bayesian spatiotemporal modelling study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- The association between different timeframes of air pollution exposure and COVID-19 incidence, morbidity and mortality in German counties in 2020.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2024Article
- Human E3 ubiquitin ligases: accelerators and brakes for SARS-CoV-2 infection.Biochemical Society transactions · 2024Review
42 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundUnderstanding the epidemiological parameters that determine the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 is essential for public health intervention. Globally, a number of studies were conducted to estimate the average serial interval and incubation period of COVID-19. Combining findings of existing studies that estimate the average serial interval and incubation period of COVID-19 significantly improves the quality of evidence. Hence, this study aimed to determine the overall average serial interval and incubation period of COVID-19.
methodsWe followed the PRISMA checklist to present this study. A comprehensive search strategy was carried out from international electronic databases (Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library) by two experienced reviewers (MAA and DBK) authors between the 1st of June and the 31st of July 2020. All observational studies either reporting the serial interval or incubation period in persons diagnosed with COVID-19 were included in this study. Heterogeneity across studies was assessed using the I
resultsWe combined a total of 23 studies to estimate the overall mean serial interval of COVID-19. The mean serial interval of COVID-19 ranged from 4. 2 to 7.5 days. Our meta-analysis showed that the weighted pooled mean serial interval of COVID-19 was 5.2 (95%CI: 4.9-5.5) days. Additionally, to pool the mean incubation period of COVID-19, we included 14 articles. The mean incubation period of COVID-19 also ranged from 4.8 to 9 days. Accordingly, the weighted pooled mean incubation period of COVID-19 was 6.5 (95%CI: 5.9-7.1) days.
conclusionsThis systematic review and meta-analysis showed that the weighted pooled mean serial interval and incubation period of COVID-19 were 5.2, and 6.5 days, respectively. In this study, the average serial interval of COVID-19 is shorter than the average incubation period, which suggests that substantial numbers of COVID-19 cases will be attributed to presymptomatic transmission.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.