Fevers Are Rarer in the Morning—Could We Be Missing Infectious Disease Cases by Screening for Fever Then?
Abstract
We retrospectively studied US emergency department visits ( n =295,406), including nationally representative results. Patients were less likely to have detectable fevers during mornings, with especially large morning-evening differences during influenza outbreaks (national RR=0.56, 95%CI=0.47-0.66). This suggests morning screenings could miss otherwise-detectable cases. Twice-daily screenings could be a simple solution. However, similar COVID-19 research is needed.
Article Summary Line
Fevers were about half as common in the morning as in the evening during influenza outbreaks, suggesting that mornings may be a bad time to perform once-daily fever screenings for infectious diseases, and that twice-daily screenings could be preferable.
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