Case confirmation
Patients meeting the above criteria then had nasopharyngeal and
oropharyngeal swabs for identification of 2019-nCoV nucleic acid by
reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Patients who
tested negative by RT-PCR but still have a high index of clinical
suspicion were re-tested with a further swab for RT-PCR. All suspected
patients had an initial chest X-ray, some had a CT scan based on
clinical requirement. CT scan was not used as a diagnostic tool and all
of the patients had a RT-PCR confirmed diagnosis.