Estimating the case-fatality rate and clinical outcomes for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is crucial because health care systems must adequately prepare for outbreaks and design appropriate policies. A systematic search of PubMed, Embase, and Medline+Journal (via OVID) were conducted for relevant journal publications from database inception to May 4, 2020. Articles that reported the fatality rates and clinical outcomes of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infection were included. Nine clinical reports (four SARS reports and five COVID-19 reports) with a total of 851 patients (367 and 484 patients with SARS and COVID-19, respectively) were analyzed. A greater proportion of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 had bilateral pneumonia (90.0% [76.3%-96.2%] vs. 35.9% [21.4%-53.6%], p < 0.001) and required ventilators (23.8% [18.8%-29.6%] vs. 15.3% [11.9%-19.4%], p = 0.010) compared with hospitalized patients with SARS. The case-fatality rate was 9.5% (6.5%-13.7%) and 6.1% (3.5%-10.3%) among patients with COVID-19 and SARS, respectively (p = 0.186). The case-fatality rate among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 was comparable to that during the 2003 SARS outbreak. A higher incidence of bilateral pneumonia and increased ventilator usage were noted among patients with COVID-19 compared with patients with SARS.
Keywords: COVID-19; fatality; severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).