Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics of 124 Elderly Outpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China

Background: Since the end of 2019, a pneumonia epidemic with the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19; previously known as 2019-nCoV) emerged in Wuhan, China. And the number of infections far exceeds the scope that medical institutions can treat. However, there was not noticed the information of elderly patients with COVID-19 who were not admitted to the hospital in time. Methods: In this retrospective study, we collected 124 confirmed or suspected elderly outpatients infected with COVID-19 in 30 hospitals from Jan 22 to Feb 11, 2020 in Wuhan. The cases were performed using the latest diagnostic methods and comparative analysis of epidemiological, symptomatic, detection and computed tomographic (CT) data. Findings: Of the 124 outpatients included 60 males and 64 females, with a median age of 64 years (interquartile range, 57-71 years; range, 50-87 years), and 30 were close contacts of the confirmed patient of COVID-19. The median distance between the patient's residence and the hospital was 5.3 km (interquartile range, 2.1-9.8 km), and the median time illness onset day was 7 days (interquartile range, 5-10 days). Patients had common symptoms of fever and cough, or with respiratory and other systemic symptoms. According to laboratory examination, 82 (66.1%) patients showed lymphopenia and C-reactive protein (CRP) increased in 97 of 99 tested patients. Imaging examination showed 114 (92%) patient of bilateral pneumonia, and 12 (10%) patient had unilateral right pneumonia or bilateral pneumonia. 33 (27%) patient were evaluated by real-time RT-PCR, of these 5 (15%) patients had negative results, and the median time from symptom onset to confirm was 9 days (interquartile range, 7-11 days).Interpretation: The COVID-19 infection was a mass onset, with a strong concealment that is difficult to detect in the early stages, and early detection can reduce the harm of the disease. Due to traffic control and tight medical resources, the inability to treat in a timely manner will lead to worsening of the disease of elderly patients, and even fatal respiratory diseases.Funding Statement: This study was funded by the Program of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Science and Technology (LGF20H280003), the Project of Science and Technology of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Zhejiang Province (2020ZX004).Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the National Health Commission and the institutional board of each participating site. Oral consent was obtained from patients.