• Jiangshan Lian, Xi Jin, Shaorui Hao, Huan Cai, Shanyan Zhang, Lin Zheng, Hongyu Jia, Jianhua Hu, Jianguo Gao, Yimin Zhang, Xiaoli Zhang, Guodong Yu, Xiaoyan Wang, Jueqing Gu, Chanyuan Ye, Ciliang Jin, Yingfeng Lu, Xia Yu, Xiaopeng Yu, Yue Ren, Yunqing Qiu, Lanjuan Li, Jifang Sheng, and Yida Yang.
• State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
• Clin. Infect. Dis. 2020 Jul 28; 71 (15): 740-747.

BackgroundThe outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a large threat to public health in China, with high contagious capacity and varied mortality. This study aimed to investigate the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of older patients with COVID-19 outside Wuhan.MethodsA retrospective study was performed, with collecting data from medical records of confirmed COVID-19 patients in Zhejiang province from 17 January to 12 February 2020. Epidemiological, clinical, and treatment data were analyzed between older (≥ 60 years) and younger (< 60 years) patients.ResultsA total of 788 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were selected; 136 were older patients with corresponding mean age of 68.28 ± 7.31 years. There was a significantly higher frequency of women in older patient group compared with younger patients (57.35% vs 46.47%, P = .021). The presence of coexisting medical conditions was significantly higher in older patients compared with younger patients (55.15% vs 21.93%, P < .001), including the rate of hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Significantly higher rates of severe clinical type (older vs younger groups: 16.18% vs 5.98%, P < .001), critical clinical type (8.82% vs 0.77%, P < .001), shortness of breath (12.50% vs 3.07%, P < .001), and temperature of > 39.0°C (13.97% vs 7.21%, P = .010) were observed in older patients compared with younger patients. Finally, higher rates of intensive care unit admission (9.56% vs 1.38%, P < .001) and methylprednisolone application (28.68% vs 9.36%, P < .001) were also identified in older patients compared with younger ones.ConclusionsThe specific epidemiological and clinical features of older COVID-19 patients included significantly higher female sex, body temperature, comorbidities, and rate of severe and critical type disease.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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