Abstract

Abstract By 27 February 2020, the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) caused 82 623 confirmed cases and 2858 deaths globally, more than severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (8273 cases, 775 deaths) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (1139 cases, 431 deaths) caused in 2003 and 2013, respectively. COVID‐19 has spread to 46 countries internationally. Total fatality rate of COVID‐19 is estimated at 3.46% by far based on published data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). Average incubation period of COVID‐19 is around 6.4 days, ranges from 0 to 24 days. The basic reproductive number ( R 0 ) of COVID‐19 ranges from 2 to 3.5 at the early phase regardless of different prediction models, which is higher than SARS and MERS. A study from China CDC showed majority of patients (80.9%) were considered asymptomatic or mild pneumonia but released large amounts of viruses at the early phase of infection, which posed enormous challenges for containing the spread of COVID‐19. Nosocomial transmission was another severe problem. A total of 3019 health workers were infected by 12 February 2020, which accounted for 3.83% of total number of infections, and extremely burdened the health system, especially in Wuhan. Limited epidemiological and clinical data suggest that the disease spectrum of COVID‐19 may differ from SARS or MERS. We summarize latest literatures on genetic, epidemiological, and clinical features of COVID‐19 in comparison to SARS and MERS and emphasize special measures on diagnosis and potential interventions. This review will improve our understanding of the unique features of COVID‐19 and enhance our control measures in the future.

Keywords

EpidemiologyCase fatality rateOutbreakMedicineCoronavirusPneumoniaMiddle East respiratory syndrome coronavirusMiddle East respiratory syndromeCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)AsymptomaticTransmission (telecommunications)VirologyIncubation periodDiseasePandemicInternal medicineInfectious disease (medical specialty)Biology

MeSH Terms

Antiviral AgentsBetacoronavirusCOVID-19COVID-19 VaccinesChinaCommunicable Disease ControlCoronavirus InfectionsHumansImmunizationPassiveLymphopeniaMiddle East Respiratory Syndrome CoronavirusPandemicsPneumoniaViralPrevalenceSevere acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirusSARS-CoV-2Severe Acute Respiratory SyndromeSurvival AnalysisThrombocytopeniaViral VaccinesCOVID-19 Serotherapy

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

Publication Info

Year
2020
Type
review
Volume
92
Issue
6
Pages
568-576
Citations
1594
Access
Closed

External Links

Download PDF (Free) View on DOI.org PubMed Semantic Scholar

Social Impact

Altmetric
PlumX Metrics

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

1594
OpenAlex
99
Influential

Cite This

Yixuan Wang, Yuyi Wang, Yan Chen et al. (2020). Unique epidemiological and clinical features of the emerging 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID‐19) implicate special control measures. Journal of Medical Virology , 92 (6) , 568-576. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25748

Identifiers

DOI
10.1002/jmv.25748
PMID
32134116
PMCID
PMC7228347

Data Quality

Data completeness: 86%