Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, screening asymptomatic admitted patients for COVID-19 became routine in order to minimize the potential risk of these individuals as silent but infectious hosts in the propagation of this pandemic. However, testing is costly and the value of this indiscriminate testing was not studied. Hence, our study aimed to determine the rates of positive COVID-19 PCR results in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with no suspicion for a COVID-19 infection at different times during the pandemic.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of asymptomatic patients presenting to the ED with no COVID infection risk factors, in an urban, tertiary care hospital in Lebanon, from March 2020 to January 2021, representing periods with different national incidence rates of COVID-19. We included patients of all ages, from the last 15 days of each month, who were tested for COVID-19 by PCR in the ED and who fulfilled the following “screening group” criteria: no travel within the last 14 days; no known COVID-19 exposure within the last 14 days; and no symptoms or physical exam findings that could be associated with a COVID-19 infection. We collected data on age, and PCR result.

Results: We identified 3,853 patients who underwent COVID-19 PCR test during the above time intervals in our ED. The rate of test positivity in the community during this study period ranged from 1.1% to 21.8%. Out of the 743 (19.3%) patients that fit our inclusion criteria, none had a positive COVID-19 test.

Conclusion: Even during high countrywide incidence rates of COVID-19, all patients in the screening group had a negative PCR. Algorithms identifying this group can be used to minimize a costly test, to avoid delaying inpatient care or surgeries and to reduce patient’s length of stay in already overwhelmed EDs.