Key to successful treatment of COVID-19: accurate identification of severe risks and early intervention of disease progression

meizhu chen; changli tu; Cuiyan Tan; Xiaobin Zheng; xiaohua wang; jian wu; Yiying Huang; zhenguo wang; yan yan; zhonghe li; hong shan; Jing Liu; jin huang

A total of 103 patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 nasopharyngeal swab test in Zhuhai, 5 of whom were younger than 14 years old, belonged to pediatric diagnosis and treatment; the first case (death case) among adults was not treated by our medical team. A total of 97 patients treated by the diagnosis and treatment team included in the analysis of this report, of which 26 were severe, accounting for 26.8%. Among the cases of COVID-19 in Zhuhai, 69 of the 97 patients were local residents of Wuhan or had lived in Wuhan within 14 days before the onset, 8 cases were from Hubei area outside Wuhan, 14 had a history of direct contact with personnel from Hubei, and another 6 cases did not have a clear epidemiological history. The proportion of severe cases of patients directly from Wuhan was lower than that of non-severe cases (P=0.028), but the proportion of severe cases of patients who had no clear epidemiological history was higher (P=0.023). This coincides with the possibility of multiple origins of the new coronavirus. Clinical symptoms found in these COVID-19 patients were: fever, shortness of breath, cough, diarrhea, loss of appetite, hemoptysis ,fatigue, nasal congestion, runny nose, chest tightness, and sputum.