ABSTRACT
Background Towards the end of December 2019, the Wuhan health commission declared an outbreak of clusters of pneumonia in patients. Sequencing indicated that this disease (COVID-19) was caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The outbreak of COVID-19 is currently still underway.Methods We recruited 75 SARS-CoV-2 infected patients admitted to the Center of Infectious Disease division 2 of Beijing Ditan Hospital from Jan 20 to Mar 20, 2020. Epidemiological, demographic, clinical, radiological features, laboratory data were analyzed.Results Of the 75 patients, 42(56%) patients were male and 33(44%) patients were female. The mean age of all patients was 41.5 ± 19.4 years. Male patients were more likely to become severe. There were 9 family clusters accounted for 44 patients. Patients classified as being severe had a higher frequency of fever upon admission than patients classified as moderate cases. For moderate patients, the median duration of viral shedding was 25(9.5, 42) days (range 1–63 days) from the first positive nucleic acid test compared to 14(9, 21.25) days (range 2–62 days) for severe cases. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (p = 0.041). Cox regression analyses indicated that disease status and CRP were the factors that affect the duration of viral shedding. Virus clearance was significantly faster in severe patients compared to moderate patients(p = 0.011), and patients with CRP range in 2–10 times higher than upper limit of normal value had longer duration of viral shedding(p = 0.012). CRP and CD4 + T lymphocyte was negative correlated, and the relationship between CRP and CD4 + T lymphocyte was statistically significant (P = 0.003), with a correlation coefficient of -0.564. During the second week following the onset of illness, severe cases had higher WBC, NEU and CRP, but lower LYM, MON and EOS as compared with moderate cases (all P < 0.05). Severe cases still had lower lymphocyte counts and higher CRP than moderate cases in the third week.Conclusions Viral clearance was significantly prolonged in moderate patients, and those CRP in 2–10 times higher than upper limit of normal value. Immune response may affect the duration of viral shedding. Severe cases had a persistence lower lymphocyte count and higher CRP than moderate cases.