ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the epidemic characteristics of COVID-19 in Lu’an city, so as to provide scientific basis for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in this area. Methods All the confirmed cases of COVID-19 were selected from the Infectious Disease Reporting System from the onset of disease to 24:00 on February 18th, 2020 in Lu’an City. The general demographic, onset and medical information, and epidemiological characteristics of confirmed cases were collected to describe the feature of patients. The spatial and temporal distribution of disease transmission was analyzed by SaTScan 9.6.0.0 software, and Excel 2010 software was used to draw the epidemic curves of all cases. Results A total of 69 confirmed cases were reported in Lu’an City by February 18th, 2020. There were more male cases (44) than female (25), and cases mainly aged 36-45 years old (37.68%). The proportion of workers was the highest (24.64%). The first symptom of conformed cases was fever (50, 72.46%), cough (25, 36.23%) and fatigue (12, 17.40%). The epidemic was more serious in Jinzhai County (23), Huoshan County (17) and Huoqiu County (13). The number of cases in Lu’an showed that the first epidemic peak occurred between January 25th and January 28th, and the largest number of cases occurred on January 27th, then showed a downward trend. A total of 45 aggregate cases were found. Conclusion The COVID-19 epidemic in Lu’an City is generally preventable and controllable. It will be alert to the risk of family clustering, spread of asymptomatic infections and imported cases. Future work should focus on the investigation of close contacts. © 2021, Publication Centre of Anhui Medical University. All rights reserved.