Abstract
China has experienced an outbreak of COVID-19 since December 2019. This study investigated the differences between the imported and local cases of COVID-19 in Nanyang, China. In this study, a total of 129 COVID-19 confirmed cases with a clear epidemiological history admitted to hospitals in Nanyang from January 24 to February 26, 2020 were enrolled. Patients who had a travel history to or a residence history in Wuhan or in the surrounding areas in Hubei Province within 14 days before the illness onset were assigned to the imported group (n=70), and the others were assigned to the local group (n=59). The differences in epidemiological characteristics, clinical features, laboratory and imaging results, and prognosis were compared between the 2 groups. The early diagnosed cases were mainly imported cases, and the later diagnosed ones were mainly local cases. The most common first symptom was fever; moderate fever was commonly seen in imported cases whereas low fever was commonly seen in local cases. Lymphocyte counts in the imported group were lower than those in the local group. The imported group showed more advanced and severe abnormalities in the CT scan whereas the local group showed milder pulmonary abnormalities. The proportion of severe and critically severe patients in the imported group was higher than that in the local group. In conclusion, the imported cases have more severe or critically severe patients with a higher mortality rate than the local cases.
Footnotes
JZ and XZ contributed equally.
Contributors XZ and JZ had the idea for and designed the study and had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. XZ, CS, PL, and YC drafted the paper. JZ, KL, WQ, BJ, and FP did the analysis. All authors critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and gave final approval for the version to be published. XZ, CS, PL, YC, JZ, KL, WQ, BJ, and FP collected the data. All authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval This study was approved by the Institute Research Medical Ethics Committee of Henan Provincial People’s Hospital (No SOP-IRB-KYLW-059). Written informed consents were obtained from all the patients involved.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request. All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
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