Fig. 5

Sensitivity analysis based on the clinical characteristics in upper respiratory tract samples. The association between the duration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA positivity from the onset of COVID-19 in upper respiratory tract samples and mean age (a), the proportion of women (b), the proportion of patients with any comorbidities (c), the proportion of patients with compromised status (d), the proportion of severe patients (e), and the proportion of patients treated with glucocorticoid (f) in each study. The correlation was evaluated using the Spearman correlation coefficient