Descriptive Study Regarding the Ambulant Screening Protocol for COVID-19 in Times of High SARS CoV-2 Prevalence

The exact prevalence of COVID-19 is unknown. Due to the relatively high number of diagnosed, symptomatic infections despite a strict policy, we expect a high prevalence of COVID 19 throughout the entire population. The risk that an asymptomatic carrier who is admitted to the hospital for a (semi)urgent surgery, treatment of investigation transfers the virus to the hospital staff is very high, and vice versa. This risk is even higher during surgery, where intubation is necessary. Therefore we would like to pre-screen all patients ambulantly on the presence of COVID 19 since there is no consensus for screening at the moment. The golden standard is the SARS CoV-2 PCR on the nasopharyngeal sample together with a CT scan of the lungs. Patients in which a bloodsample is taken as standard of care procedure in this ambulant screening will be asked to give more blood for further investigation.

On top of this standard of care screening, we will perform a questionnaire at the pre-operative visit which evaluates the possible occurence of certain symptoms in the last 2 weeks. These symptoms are fever, anorexia, cough, diarrhea, sneezing, vomiting, dyspnea, headache, rhinorrhea, loss of smell, muscle pain, sputum, sore throat and fatigue. Patients were also asked if one of their housemates are affected by these symptoms. Furthermore, 2 weeks after surgery, patient will be contacted to phone in order to fill the same questionnaire.