Triaging patients in the outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus

  1. Guoqing Huang
  2. Weiqian Zeng
  3. Wenbo Wang
  4. Yanmin Song
  5. Xiaoye Mo
  6. Jia Li
  7. Ping Wu
  8. Ruolong Wang
  9. Fangyi Zhou
  10. Jing Wu
  11. Bin Yi
  12. Zeng Xiong
  13. Lu Zhou
  14. Fanqi Wang
  15. Yangjing Tian
  16. Wenbao Hu
  17. Xia Xu
  18. Ruonan Zhai
  19. Kai Yuan
  20. Xiangmin Li
  21. Xinjian Qiu
  22. Jian Qiu
  23. Aimin Wang

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Abstract

In the end of 2019, the epidemic of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) occurred in Wuhan and spread rapidly. Changsha, a city located south to the epicenter, was soon impacted. To control the transmission of the coronavirus and avoid nosocomial infection, triage procedures based on epidemiology were implemented in a local hospital of the city. This retrospective study analyzed the data collected during the triage period and found that COVID-19 patients were enriched seven folds into the Section A designated for rapid detection and quarantine. On the other side, roughly triple amounts of visits were received at the Section B for patients without obvious epidemiological history. Eight COVID-19 cases were spotted out of 247 suspected patients. More than 50% of the suspected patients were submitted to multiple rounds of nucleic acid analysis for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Of the 239 patients who were diagnosed as negative of the virus infection,188 were successfully revisited and none was reported as a COVID-19 case. Of the eight COVID-19 patients, three were confirmed only after multiple rounds of nucleic acid analysis. Besides comorbidities, delayed sharing of epidemiological history added another layer of complexity to the diagnosis in practice. While SARS-CoV-2 epidemic is being alerted in many countries, our report will be helpful to other colleagues in rapid identification of COVID-19 cases and controlling the transmission of the disease.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.13.20035212: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Written informed consent was waived due to the rapid emergence of this infectious disease.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Triage and patients: This single-centre, retrospective, observational study was done at Xiangya Hospital (Changsha, China).
    Triage
    suggested: (TRIAGE, RRID:SCR_016609)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.13.20035212 on medRxiv