Characteristics of and Public Health Responses to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outbreak in China

Sheng-Qun Deng, Hong-Juan Peng, Sheng-Qun Deng, Hong-Juan Peng

Abstract

In December 2019, cases of unidentified pneumonia with a history of exposure in the Huanan Seafood Market were reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was identified to be accountable for this disease. Human-to-human transmission is confirmed, and this disease (named COVID-19 by World Health Organization (WHO)) spread rapidly around the country and the world. As of 18 February 2020, the number of confirmed cases had reached 75,199 with 2009 fatalities. The COVID-19 resulted in a much lower case-fatality rate (about 2.67%) among the confirmed cases, compared with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Among the symptom composition of the 45 fatality cases collected from the released official reports, the top four are fever, cough, short of breath, and chest tightness/pain. The major comorbidities of the fatality cases include hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, cerebral infarction, and chronic bronchitis. The source of the virus and the pathogenesis of this disease are still unconfirmed. No specific therapeutic drug has been found. The Chinese Government has initiated a level-1 public health response to prevent the spread of the disease. Meanwhile, it is also crucial to speed up the development of vaccines and drugs for treatment, which will enable us to defeat COVID-19 as soon as possible.

Keywords: 2019-nCoV; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; clinical characteristics; coronavirus; diagnosis; pneumonia; prevention and control; public health; treatment.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Daily cumulative/emerged number of confirmed cases and fatal cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Mainland China. As of 18 February 2020, the total number of confirmed cases and deaths reached 74,185 and 2004, respectively. Since 16 February 2020, the total number of confirmed cases increased quickly; the daily emerging cases increased steadily to 3886 on February 4, and then fluctuated to 2015 on 11 February 2020; the fatality cases number increased slowly to 2004 cases on 18 February 2020. The cumulative and daily emerged cases number jumped to 59,804 and 15,152, respectively, on 12 February 2020.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Clinical symptoms and comorbidities of the patients died of COVID-19. (A) Among 41 cases with fatalities, the symptoms include fever (80.5%), cough (56.1%), shortness of breath (31.7%), chest tightness/pain (24.4%), fatigue (22.0%), dyspnea (12.2%), dizziness/headache (4.9%), general pain (7.3%), and chills (4.9%). (B) Among 26 cases with fatalities, the major comorbidities are hypertension (53.8%), diabetes (42.3%), coronary heart disease (19.2%), cerebral infarction (15.4%), chronic bronchitis (19.2%), and Parkinson’s disease (7.7%). The case information is from reports released by different provincial Health Commissions, including the National Health Commission (the links are shown in Supplementary Data 1).

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