Differences between COVID‐19 and suspected then confirmed SARS‐CoV‐2‐negative pneumonia: A retrospective study from a single center

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) broke out in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019. Tens thousands of people have been infected with the disease. Our aim was to distinguish severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2)‐positive patients from SARS‐CoV‐2‐negative patients. We retrospectively compared the data of COVID‐19 patients with those of suspected and confirmed SARS‐CoV‐2‐negative patients (control patients). There were 78 COVID‐19 patients and 26 control patients, whose median ages were significantly different (P=0.001). The percentage of COVID‐19 patients admitting exposure to Wuhan was obviously higher than that of control patients (X²=29.130, PX²=22.636, P X²=24.930, 8.480, P <0.05).Younger age, exposure to Wuhan, fever, cough, and slight changes in routine blood work‐up parameters, urea and creatinine were important features discriminating COVID‐19 from control patients. Slightly increased, but far less than 0.5ng/ml, PCT levels also differentiated COVID‐19 patients from control patients