Patients were assessed once daily by trained nurses using diary cards that captured data on a seven-category ordinal scale and on safety from day 0 to day 28, hospital discharge, or death. Safety was monitored by the Good Clinical Practice office from Jin Yin-tan Hospital. Other clinical data were recorded using the WHO-ISARIC (World Health Organization–International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium) case record form (https://isaric.tghn.org).16 Serial oropharyngeal swab samples were obtained on day 1 (before lopinavir–ritonavir was administered) and on days 5, 10, 14, 21, and 28 until discharge or death had occurred and were tested at Teddy Clinical Research Laboratory (Tigermed–DiAn Joint Venture), using quantitative real-time RT-PCR (see the Supplementary Appendix). RNA was extracted from clinical samples with the MagNA Pure 96 system, detected and quantified by Cobas z480 qPCR (Roche), with the use of LightMix Modular SARS-CoV-2 (COVID19) assays (TIB MOBIOL). These samples were obtained for all 199 patients who were still alive at every time point. Sampling did not stop when a swab at a given time point was negative. Baseline throat swabs were tested for detection of E gene, RdRp gene, and N gene, and samples on the subsequent visits were quantitatively and qualitatively detected for E gene. Clinical data were recorded on paper case record forms and then double-entered into an electronic database and validated by trial staff.