Prevalence and severity of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19): A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract Background Since being first reported in Wuhan, China, in December 8, 2019, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, has spread globally. Some case studies regarding the characteristics and outcome of patients with COVID-19 have been published recently. We conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the risk factors of COVID-19. Methods Medline, SinoMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library were searched for clinical and epidemiological studies on confirmed cases of COVID-19. Results: the incidence of fever, cough, fatigue, and dyspnea symptoms were 85.6% (95CI 81.3-89.9%), 65.7% (95CI 60.1-71.4%), 42.4% (95CI 32.2-52.6%) and 21.4% (95CI 15.3-27.5%). The prevalence of diabetes was 7.7%(95CI 6.1-9.3%), hypertension was 15.6% (95CI 12.6-18.6%), cardiovascular disease was 4.7%(95CI 3.1-6.2%), and malignancy was 1.2% (95CI 0.5-1.8%). The complications, including ARDS risk, ranged from 5.6 to 13.2%, with the pooled estimate of ARDS risk at 9.4%, ACI at 5.8% (95CI 0.7-10.8%), AKI at 2.1% (95CI 0.6-3.7%), and shock at 4.7% (95CI 0.9-8.6%). The risks of severity and mortality ranged from 12.6 to 23.5% and from 2.0 to 4.4%, with pooled estimates at 18.0 and 3.2%, respectively. The percentage of critical cases in diabetes and hypertension was 44.5% (95CI 27.0-61.9%) and 41.7% (95CI 26.4-56.9%), respectively. Conclusion Fever is the most common symptom in patients with COVID-19. The most prevalent comorbidities are hypertension and diabetes which are associated with the severity of COVID-19. ARDS and ACI may be the main obstacles for patients to treatment recovery. The case severe rate and mortality is lower than that of SARS and MERS.