• Joanne Conway, Anna Gould, Richard Westley, Suneil A Raju, Anja Oklopcic, Alex Broadbent, and Ahmed H Abdelhafiz.
• Department of Geriatric Medicine, Rotherham General Hospital, Rotherham, UK.
• Int. J. Clin. Pract. 2021 Mar 1; 75 (3): e13807.

ObjectivesIn December 2019, a pneumonia-like illness was first reported in Wuhan-China caused by a new coronavirus named corona virus disease-2019 (COVID-19) which then spread to cause a global pandemic. Most of the available data in the literature is derived from Chinese cohorts and we aim to contribute the clinical experience of a single British clinical centre with the characteristics of a British cohort.DesignA prospective case series.SettingA single clinical centre in the UK.MethodsWe have collected the demographics and medical characteristics of all COVID-19-positive cases admitted over 2-week period. All cases were diagnosed by PCR.ResultsTotal of 71 COVID-19 patients were included in this case series. Majority of patients (75%) were ≥75 years old and 58% were men. Pre-existing comorbidities was common (85% of patients). Most patients presented with respiratory symptoms such as fever (59%), shortness of breath (56%) and cough (55%). Gastrointestinal symptoms were second-most common presenting compliant such as diarrhoea (10%) and abdominal pain (7%). Opacification in chest X-rays was demonstrated in 45% of patients. All patients received supportive treatment and no specific antiviral therapy was administered in this cohort. So far, 18 (25%) patients have fully recovered, 9 patients (13%) escalated to a higher level of care and 10 (14%) have died. Patients who died were non-significantly older than those who have recovered (78.0 vs 69.2 years, P = .15) but they had a significantly higher clinical frailty scores (5.75 vs 3.36, P = .005).ConclusionThis case series demonstrated that the characteristics of British COVID-19 patients were generally similar to what is published in literature, although we report more gastrointestinal symptoms at presentation. We have identified frailty as a risk factor for adverse outcome in COVID-19 patients and suggest that it should be included in the future vaccination recommendations.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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