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. 2020 Oct;92(10):2027-2035.
doi: 10.1002/jmv.25975. Epub 2020 Jul 11.

Transmission and clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in 104 outside-Wuhan patients, China

Chengfeng Qiu  1 , Ziwei Deng  1 , Qian Xiao  2 , Yuanlu Shu  1   2   3 , Ye Deng  1 , Hongqiang Wang  1 , Xin Liao  3 , Huiwen Liu  2 , Dinghui Zhou  2 , Xiang Zhao  1 , Jianliang Zhou  1 , Jin Wang  1 , Zhihua Shi  1 , Da Long  2
Affiliations

Transmission and clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in 104 outside-Wuhan patients, China

Chengfeng Qiu et al. J Med Virol. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emigrating from Wuhan escalated the risk of spreading the disease in other cities. This report focused on outside-Wuhan patients to assess the transmission and clinical characteristics of this illness. Contact investigation was conducted on each patient who was admitted to the assigned hospitals in Hunan Province (geographically adjacent to Wuhan) from 22 January to 23 February 2020. Cases were confirmed by the polymerase chain reaction test. Demographic, clinical, and outcomes were collected and analyzed. Of the 104 patients, 48 (46.15%) were cases who immigrated from Wuhan; 93 (89.42%) had a definite contact history with infection. Family clusters were the major body of patients. Transmission along the chain of three "generations" was observed. Five asymptomatic infected cases were found and two of them infected their relatives. Mean age was 43 (range, 8-84) years, and 49 (47.12%) were male. The median incubation period was 6 (range, 1-32) days, which of 8 patients ranged from 18 to 32 days, 96 (92.31%) were discharged, and 1 (0.96%) died. The average hospital stay was 10 (range, 8-14) days. Family but not community transmission became the main body of infections in the two centers, suggesting the timely control measures after the Wuhan shutdown worked well. Asymptomatic transmission demonstrated here warned us that it may lead to the widespread of COVID-19. A 14-day quarantine may need to be prolonged.

Keywords: asymptomatic transmission; coronavirus disease 2019; transmission and clinical characteristics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Timeline of control measures in China and current status in two centers. A, The timeline of control measures in China and the time distribution of emigrated cases and indigenous cases. B, The growth of cumulative confirmed patients and the newly confirmed cases per day
Figure 2
Figure 2
Incubation period of confirmed cases. Date presented as median (range)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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