Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics of COVID-19 Patients in Shiyan City of Hubei Province, China

Background: The outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV, also named SARS-CoV-2) has spread from Wuhan to outside of Hubei province and other countries or regions, caused thousands of patients with disease named “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)”, and led to a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) declared by World Health Organization (WHO). The person-to-person spread of SARS-CoV-2 was reported among close contacts.Methods: To investigate the early epidemic of COVID-19, totally 176 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Shiyan city, Hubei province, China were surveyed. Their traces of activities and contacts were tracked and analyzed. Among the 176 confirmed cases, 53 patients were admitted to the Shiyan Renmin Hospital of Hubei University of Medicine. The clinical characteristics on the 53 patients were collected and compared based on the nucleotides and pneumonia in laboratory inspection.Findings: The early confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hubei province outside Wuhan were emerged by migrate rate-dependent, and the second-generation patients were mainly cluster-onset between family members from Wuhan travelers. Epidemiological investigation indicated that 10.7% (12/112) of local COVID-19 cases were transferred SARS-CoV-2 by asymptomatic infected individuals. Clinical data showed that 47.2% (25/53) of the COVID-19 patients were co-infected with the Meningococcal pneumonia. Interpretation: It should be paid more attentions to the high incidence of coinfections with M. pneumoniae in the COVID-19 patients. It is necessary to assess the transmissibility of asymptomatic infected individuals and other possibilities for SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The strict intervention measures should be adopted by the public to lower basic reproduction number and stop the spread.Funding Statement: This work was supported by research grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81902066, 81730061, and 81471942), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Provincial Department of Education (Q20192105 and Q20192104), the Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2018CFB185 and 2018CFB093), Cultivating Project for Young Scholar at Hubei University of Medicine (2017QDJZR08 and 2016QDJZR03), and National Undergraduate Training Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (201913249002). Declaration of Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.Ethics Approval Statement: This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. This study was approved by the Shiyan Renmin Hospital of Hubei University of Medicine institutional review board and the need for informed consent was waived.