BMC Infectious Diseases (Jul 2022)

Comparison of clinical characteristics and outcomes of hospitalized patients with seasonal coronavirus infection and COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study

  • Guillermo Rodriguez-Nava,
  • Goar Egoryan,
  • Tianyu Dong,
  • Qishuo Zhang,
  • Elise Hyser,
  • Bidhya Poudel,
  • Maria Adriana Yanez-Bello,
  • Daniela Patricia Trelles-Garcia,
  • Chul Won Chung,
  • Bimatshu Pyakuryal,
  • Taraz Imani-Ramos,
  • Valeria Patricia Trelles-Garcia,
  • Daniel Sebastian Bustamante-Soliz,
  • Jonathan J. Stake

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-022-07555-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 22, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Abstract Background Unlike SARS-CoV and MERS-C0V, SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to become a recurrent seasonal infection; hence, it is essential to compare the clinical spectrum of COVID-19 to the existent endemic coronaviruses. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of hospitalized patients with seasonal coronavirus (sCoV) infection and COVID-19 to compare their clinical characteristics and outcomes. Methods A total of 190 patients hospitalized with any documented respiratory tract infection and a positive respiratory viral panel for sCoV from January 1, 2011, to March 31, 2020, were included. Those patients were compared with 190 hospitalized adult patients with molecularly confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 admitted from March 1, 2020, to May 25, 2020. Results Among 190 patients with sCoV infection, the Human Coronavirus-OC43 was the most common coronavirus with 47.4% of the cases. When comparing demographics and baseline characteristics, both groups were of similar age (sCoV: 74 years vs. COVID-19: 69 years) and presented similar proportions of two or more comorbidities (sCoV: 85.8% vs. COVID-19: 81.6%). More patients with COVID-19 presented with severe disease (78.4% vs. 67.9%), sepsis (36.3% vs. 20.5%), and developed ARDS (15.8% vs. 2.6%) compared to patients with sCoV infection. Patients with COVID-19 had an almost fourfold increased risk of in-hospital death than patients with sCoV infection (OR 3.86, CI 1.99–7.49; p < .001). Conclusion Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 had similar demographics and baseline characteristics to hospitalized patients with sCoV infection; however, patients with COVID-19 presented with higher disease severity, had a higher case-fatality rate, and increased risk of death than patients with sCoV. Clinical findings alone may not help confirm or exclude the diagnosis of COVID-19 during high acute respiratory illness seasons. The respiratory multiplex panel by PCR that includes SARS-CoV-2 in conjunction with local epidemiological data may be a valuable tool to assist clinicians with management decisions.

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