Investigation of epidemiological and clinical characteristics of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the second pandemic of COVID-19 in Chengdu, China

Front Public Health. 2024 May 1:12:1394762. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1394762. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Objective: This study investigated the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infected patients during the second pandemic of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease of 2019) in Chengdu, China. Furthermore, the differences between first infection and re-infection cases were also compared and analyzed to provide evidence for better prevention and control of SARS-CoV-2 re-infection.

Methods: An anonymous questionnaire survey was conducted using an online platform (wjx.cn) between May 20, 2023 to September 12, 2023.

Results: This investigation included 62.94% females and 32.97% of them were 18-30 years old. Furthermore, 7.19-17.18% of the participants either did not receive vaccination at all or only received full vaccination, respectively. Moreover, 577 (57.64%) participants were exposed to cluster infection. The clinical manifestations of these patients were mainly mild to moderate; 78.18% of participants had a fever for 1-3 days, while 37.84% indicated a full course of disease for 4-6 days. In addition, 40.66% of the participants had re-infection and 72.97% indicated their first infection approximately five months before. The clinical symptoms of the first SARS-CoV-2 infection were moderate to severe, while re-infection indicated mild to moderate symptoms (the severity of symptoms other than diarrhea and conjunctival congestion had statistically significant differences) (p < 0.05). Moreover, 70.53 and 59.21% of first and re-infection cases had fever durations of 3-5 and 0-2 days, respectively. Whereas 47.91 and 46.40% of first and re-infection cases had a disease course of 7-9 and 4-6 days.

Conclusion: The SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals in Chengdu, China, during the second pandemic of COVID-19 had mild clinical symptoms and a short course of disease. Furthermore, compared with the first infection, re-infection cases had mild symptoms, low incidences of complications, short fever duration, and course of disease.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; clinical characteristics; epidemiological characteristics; first infection; re-infection.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • China / epidemiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Pandemics / statistics & numerical data
  • Reinfection / epidemiology
  • SARS-CoV-2*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Independent scientific research project in the Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu in 2023: construction of risk prediction model for clinical application of hormones in COVID-19 (75).