Clinical characteristics of 2019 novel coronavirus infection in China

Abstract

Abstract Background Since December 2019, acute respiratory disease (ARD) due to 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) emerged in Wuhan city and rapidly spread throughout China. We sought to delineate the clinical characteristics of these cases. Methods We extracted the data on 1,099 patients with laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV ARD from 552 hospitals in 31 provinces/provincial municipalities through January 29 th , 2020. Results The median age was 47.0 years, and 41.90% were females. Only 1.18% of patients had a direct contact with wildlife, whereas 31.30% had been to Wuhan and 71.80% had contacted with people from Wuhan. Fever (87.9%) and cough (67.7%) were the most common symptoms. Diarrhea is uncommon. The median incubation period was 3.0 days (range, 0 to 24.0 days). On admission, ground-glass opacity was the typical radiological finding on chest computed tomography (50.00%). Significantly more severe cases were diagnosed by symptoms plus reverse-transcriptase polymerase-chain-reaction without abnormal radiological findings than non-severe cases (23.87% vs. 5.20%, P <0.001). Lymphopenia was observed in 82.1% of patients. 55 patients (5.00%) were admitted to intensive care unit and 15 (1.36%) succumbed. Severe pneumonia was independently associated with either the admission to intensive care unit, mechanical ventilation, or death in multivariate competing-risk model (sub-distribution hazards ratio, 9.80; 95% confidence interval, 4.06 to 23.67). Conclusions The 2019-nCoV epidemic spreads rapidly by human-to-human transmission. Normal radiologic findings are present among some patients with 2019-nCoV infection. The disease severity (including oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, blood leukocyte/lymphocyte count and chest X-ray/CT manifestations) predict poor clinical outcomes.

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Affiliated Institutions

• Guangzhou Medical University CN
• Jinyintan Hospital CN
• Huangshi Central Hospital CN
• Southern Medical University CN
• First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University CN
• The First Hospital of Changsha CN
• Sun Yat-sen University CN
• Second Hospital of Yichang CN
• Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University CN
• Guangzhou Eighth People's Hospital CN
• Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital CN
• Hubei Polytechnic University CN
• Wuhan University of Science and Technology CN
• University of Hong Kong - Shenzhen Hospital CN
• Peking Union Medical College Hospital CN
• Chinese Center For Disease Control and Prevention CN
• Hubei University of Medicine CN
• Sanya Central Hospital CN
• Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital CN
• Zhejiang University CN
• Public Health Clinical Center of Chengdu CN
• University of Hong Kong HK
• The First People's Hospital of Wenling CN
• Huanggang Central Hospital CN
• State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease CN
• Chinese University of Hong Kong HK
• Wuhan No.1 Hospital CN
• Taihe Hospital CN
• Wuhan Union Hospital CN
• Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College CN
• Southern University of Science and Technology CN
• Central Hospital of Wuhan CN

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