Objective: In December 2019, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan. However, the characteristics and risk factors associated with disease severity, unimprovement and mortality are unclear and our objective is to throw some light on these. Methods: All consecutive patients diagnosed with COVID-19 admitted to the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from January 11 to February 6, 2020, were enrolled in this retrospective cohort study. Results: A total of 663 COVID-19 patients were included in this study. Among these, 247 (37.3%) had at least one kind of chronic disease; 0.5% of the patients (n ¼ 3) were diagnosed with mild COVID-19, while 37.8% (251/663), 47.5% (315/663), and 14.2% (94/663) were in moderate, severe, and critical conditions, respectively. In our hospital, during follow-up 251 of 663 patients (37.9%) improved and 25 patients died, a mortality rate of 3.77%. Older patients (>60 years old) and those with chronic diseases were prone to have a severe to critical COVID-19 condition, to show unimprovement, and to die (p <0.001, <0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified being male (OR ¼ 0.486, 95%CI 0.311e0.758; p 0.001), having a severe COVID-19 condition (OR ¼ 0.129, 95%CI 0.082e0.201; p <0.001), expectoration (OR ¼ 1.796, 95%CI 1.062e3.036; p 0.029), muscle ache (OR ¼ 0.309, 95%CI 0.153e0.626; p 0.001), and decreased albumin (OR ¼ 1.929, 95%CI 1.199e3.104; p 0.007) as being associated with unimprovement in COVID-19 patients. Conclusion: Male sex, a severe COVID-19 condition, expectoration, muscle ache, and decreased albumin were independent risk factors which influence the improvement of COVID-19 patients.

Computed tomography (CT) is the preferred imaging method for diagnosing 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID19) pneumonia. We aimed to construct a system based on deep learning for detecting COVID-19 pneumonia on high resolution CT. For model development and validation, 46,096 anonymous images from 106 admitted patients, including 51 patients of laboratory confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia and 55 control patients of other diseases in Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University were retrospectively collected. Twenty-seven prospective consecutive patients in Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University were collected to evaluate the efficiency of radiologists against 2019-CoV pneumonia with that of the model. An external test was conducted in Qianjiang Central Hospital to estimate the system’s robustness. The model achieved a per-patient accuracy of 95.24% and a per-image accuracy of 98.85% in internal retrospective dataset. For 27 internal prospective patients, the system achieved a comparable performance to that of expert radiologist. In external dataset, it achieved an accuracy of 96%. With the assistance of the model, the reading time of radiologists was greatly decreased by 65%. The deep learning model showed a comparable performance with expert radiologist, and greatly improved the efficiency of radiologists in clinical practice.

Objective: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) -a novel and highly infectious pneumoniahas now spread across China and beyond for over four months. However, its psychological impact on patients is unclear. We aim to examine the prevalence and associated risk factors for psychological morbidities and fatigue in patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection.Methods: Amidst the disease outbreak, 41 out of 105 COVID-19 patients in a local designated hospital in China were successfully assessed using a constellation of psychometric questionnaires to determine their psychological morbidities and fatigue. Several potential biopsychosocial risk factors (including pre-existing disabilities, CT severity score of pneumonia, social support, coping strategies) were assessed through multivariable logistic regression analyses to clarify their association with mental health in patients.Results: 43.9% of 41 patients presented with impaired general mental health, 12.2% had posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, 26.8% had anxiety and/or depression symptoms, and 53.6% had fatigue. We did not find any association between pneumonia severity and psychological morbidities or fatigue in COVID-19 patients. However, high perceived stigmatization was associated with an increased risk of impaired general mental health and high perceived social support was associated with decreased risk. Besides, negative coping inclination was associated with an increased risk of PTSD symptoms; high perceived social support was associated with a decreased risk of anxiety and/or depression symptoms. Conclusions:Psychological morbidities and chronic fatigue are common among COVID-19 patients.Negative coping inclination and being stigmatized are primary risk factors while perceived social support is the main protective factor. Number of words in the abstract: 247.Number of words in the main text: 3,109. Number of figures: 1; tables: 3.Supplementary file: 1.

Background: The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global public health emergency. Methods: 204 elderly patients (!60 years old) diagnosed with COVID-19 in Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from January 31st to February 20th, 2020 were included in this study. Clinical endpoint was inhospital death. Results: Of the 204 patients, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were the most common coexisting conditions. 76 patients died in the hospital. Multivariate analysis showed that dyspnea (hazards ratio (HR) 2.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.414-3.517; p < 0.001), older age (HR 1.1, 95% CI 1.070-1.123; p < 0.001), neutrophilia (HR 4.4, 95% CI 1.310-15.061; p = 0.017) and elevated ultrasensitive cardiac troponin I (HR 3.9, 95% CI 1.471-10.433; p = 0.006) were independently associated with death. Conclusion:Although so far the overall mortality of COVID-19 is relatively low, the mortality of elderly patients is much higher. Early diagnosis and supportive care are of great importance for the elderly patients of COVID-19.

IMPORTANCE Lymphopenia is common and correlates with poor clinical outcomes in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 .OBJECTIVE To determine whether a therapy that increases peripheral blood leukocyte and lymphocyte cell counts leads to clinical improvement in patients with COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTSBetween February 18 and April 10, 2020, we conducted an open-label, multicenter, randomized clinical trial at 3 participating centers in China. The main eligibility criteria were pneumonia, a blood lymphocyte cell count of 800 per μL (to convert to ×10 9 /L, multiply by 0.001) or lower, and no comorbidities. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection was confirmed with reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction testing.EXPOSURES Usual care alone, or usual care plus 3 doses of recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rhG-CSF, 5 μg/kg, subcutaneously at days 0-2). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESThe primary end point was the time from randomization to improvement of at least 1 point on a 7-category disease severity score. RESULTSOf 200 participants, 112 (56%) were men and the median (interquartile range [IQR]) age was 45 (40-55) years. There was random assignment of 100 patients (50%) to the rhG-CSF group and 100 (50%) to the usual care group. Time to clinical improvement was similar between groups (rhG-CSF group median of 12 days (IQR, 10-16 days) vs usual care group median of 13 days (IQR, 11-17 days); hazard ratio, 1.28; 95% CI, 0.95-1.71; P = .06). For secondary end points, the proportion of patients progressing to acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis, or septic shock was lower in the rhG-CSF group (rhG-CSF group, 2% vs usual care group, 15%; difference, −13%; 95%CI, −21.4% to −5.4%). At 21 days, 2 patients (2%) had died in the rhG-CSF group compared with 10 patients (10%) in the usual care group (hazard ratio, 0.19; 95%CI, 0.04-0.88). At day 5, the lymphocyte cell count was higher in the rhG-CSF group (rhG-CSF group median of 1050/μL vs usual care group median of 620/μL; Hodges-Lehmann estimate of the difference in medians, 440; 95% CI, 380-490). Serious adverse events, such as sepsis or septic shock, respiratory failure, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, occurred in 29 patients (14.5%) in the rhG-CSF group and 42 patients (21%) in the usual care group. CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCEIn preliminary findings from a randomized clinical trial, rhG-CSF treatment for patients with COVID-19 with lymphopenia but no comorbidities did not accelerate clinical improvement, but the number of patients developing critical illness or dying may have been reduced. Larger studies that include a broader range of patients with COVID-19 should be conducted.