The clinical characteristics of 1,099 patients with COVID-19 in China was recently published in the highly esteemed New England Journal of Medicine. Professor Kwok-Yung Yuen collaborated with several experts to analyse the symptoms and laboratory findings of these patients.
Key takeaways from the study:
- The median age was 47 years
- Very few were children, with <0.9% of patients aged 15 years or younger
- In this group of patients, the median duration for symptoms to appear after infection was 4 days
- The two most common symptoms were fever (88.7%) and cough (67.8%)
- Nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea were uncommon
- 91.1% of patients were diagnosed with pneumonia
- Patients were hospitalised for a median duration of 12 days
- 5% of patients were admitted to an intensive care unit
- 2.3% of patients required mechanical ventilation to help with breathing
- 1.4% of patients died
This study’s finding was that SARS-CoV-2, the 2019 coronavirus, appears to cause fewer deaths than the viruses that caused SARS or MERS outbreak; however, patients with long-term respiratory diseases do have worse outcomes.
To read the original article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, click here.
