Objective: To describe the symptom course in outpatients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Design: Retrospective chart review of standardized symptom checklist for patients followed at home by telephone calls during their acute COVID-19 illness. Compile results by day of illness into a single heatmap representation of symptoms. Setting: COVID-19 Virtual Outpatient Management Clinic (VOMC) in Atlanta, Georgia; a practice that follows patients with mild COVID-19 at home. Participants: 272 patients with confirmed COVID-19 by nasopharyngeal PCR, who presented to the VOMC within 10 days of symptom onset and within 5 days of screening PCR test. Main outcome measure: Each symptom is recorded as yes/no for each patient on each day. The total number of yes replies is divided by the total number of patients in VOMC to generate a result for each cell in the heatmap. Patients admitted to the hospital are censored from the denominator. Results: The mean duration of follow-up was 20.2 days. The most commonly reported symptoms in the course of illness were cough (83%), headache (73%) loss of smell or taste (71%), sinus congestion (71%), and body ache (67%). Symptoms remained common at 3 weeks, including cough (41%), shortness of breath on exertion (24%), loss of smell or taste (23%), sinus congestion (23%), and headache (20%). Conclusions: Symptoms of acute COVID-19 frequently last longer than the minimum duration of isolation and patients and healthcare providers should be aware that symptom resolution may be gradual.