Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China

Corresponding author: Nanshan Zhong

Affiliations: From the State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (W.G., W.L., J.H., R.C., C.T., T.W., S.L., Jin-lin Wang, N.Z., J.H., W.L.), the Departments of Thoracic Oncology (W.L.), Thoracic Surgery and Oncology (J.H.), and Emergency Medicine (Z.L.), First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, and Guangzhou Eighth People’s Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University (C.L.), and the State Key Laboratory of Organ Failure Research, Department of Biostatistics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University (C.O., P.C.), Guangzhou, Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital (Z.N., J.X.), Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (Yu Hu), the Central Hospital of Wuhan (Y.P.), Wuhan No. 1 Hospital, Wuhan Hospital of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine (L.W.), Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital (P.P.), Tianyou Hospital Affiliated to Wuhan University of Science and Technology (Jian-ming Wang), and the People’s Hospital of Huangpi District (S.Z.), Wuhan, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases (L. Liu), and the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Infection Control, University of Hong Kong–Shenzhen Hospital (K.-Y.Y.), Shenzhen, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai (H.S.), the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin (D.S.C.H.), and the Department of Microbiology and the Carol Yu Center for Infection, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam (K.-Y.Y.), Hong Kong, Medical ICU, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (B.D.), and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (G.Z.), Beijing, the State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou (L. Li), Chengdu Public Health Clinical Medical Center, Chengdu (Y.L.), Huangshi Central Hospital of Edong Healthcare Group, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi (Ya-hua Hu), the First Hospital of Changsha, Changsha (J. Liu), the Third People’s Hospital of Hainan Province, Sanya (Z.C.), Huanggang Central Hospital, Huanggang (G.L.), Wenling First People’s Hospital, Wenling (Z.Z.), the Third People’s Hospital of Yichang, Yichang (S.Q.), Affiliated Taihe Hospital of Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan (J. Luo), and Xiantao First People’s Hospital, Xiantao (C.Y.) — all in China.

Publication date: this article was published on February 28, 2020

DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2002032

Highlights

The investigators in China published the clinical characteristics based on the data regarding 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 from 552 hospitals in mainland China through January 29, 2020. The most common symptoms were fever (43.8% on admission and 88.7% during hospitalization) and cough (67.8%). Diarrhea was uncommon (3.8%). The median incubation period was 4 days (interquartile range, 2 to 7). On admission, ground-glass opacity was the most common radiologic finding on chest computed tomography (CT) (56.4%). No radiographic or CT abnormality was found in 157 of 877 patients (17.9%) with nonsevere disease and in 5 of 173 patients (2.9%) with severe disease. Lymphocytopenia was present in 83.2% of the patients on admission.

Nomination Reason

This report contains detailed information and analysis of 1099 Chinese SARS-CoV-2 infectors, providing reference to doctors and researchers in other regions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article has been nominated for Distinguished Research Awards, you can visit the website below and vote for the nominated publications:

https://www.molecularcloud.org/awards-for-distinguished-research.html.