Clinical characteristics of 82 death cases with COVID-19

Bicheng Zhang; Xiaoyang Zhou; Yanru Qiu; Fan Feng; Jia Feng; Yifan Jia; Hengcheng Zhu; Ke Hu; Jiasheng Liu; Zaiming Liu; Shihong Wang; Yiping Gong; Chenliang Zhou; Ting Zhu; Yanxiang Cheng; Zhichao Liu; Hongping Deng; Fenghua Tao; Yijun Ren; Biheng Cheng; Ling Gao; Xiongfei Wu; Lilei Yu; Zhixin Huang; Zhangfan Mao; Qibin Song; Bo Zhu; Jun Wang

In December 2019, the first acute respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2, and recently officially named as Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID- 19) by World Health Organization (WHO) occurred in Wuhan, China. 1, 2 Person-to-person transmission has been identified through respiratory droplets or likely feces. [3] [4] [5] By February 14, 2020, more than 60,000 confirmed cases and close to 2,000 dead cases have been documented in China, with hundreds of imported patients found in other countries. [4] [5] [6] [7] Generally, the incubation period of COVID-19 was 3 to 7 days. Fever, cough, and fatigue were the most common symptoms. 1 Approximately 20-30% of cases would develop severe illness, and some need further intervention in intensive care unit (ICU) . 8, 9 Organ dysfunction including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), shock, acute cardiac injury, and acute renal injury, can happen in severe cases with COVID-19. 1, 8, 9 It has been reported that critical ill patients were more likely to be older, had underlying diseases, and were more likely to have a symptom of dyspnea. 9 Oxygen therapy, mechanical ventilation, intravenous antibiotics and antiviral therapy were usually applied in clinical management, but presently there were no effective drugs for improving the clinical outcome of COVID-19, especially for severe cases. 1, 8, 9 ARDS, a rapidly progressive disease, is the main cause of death for the patients infected with previously recognized corona virus infection such as SARS-CoV and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). 10, 11 In this context, it was initially considered that lung is the most commonly damaged organ by All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.