First and second waves of coronavirus disease-19: A comparative study in hospitalized patients in Reus, Spain

  1. Simona Iftimie
  2. Ana F. López-Azcona
  3. Immaculada Vallverdú
  4. Salvador Hernández-Flix
  5. Gabriel de Febrer
  6. Sandra Parra
  7. Anna Hernández-Aguilera
  8. Francesc Riu
  9. Jorge Joven
  10. Natàlia Andreychuk
  11. Gerard Baiges-Gaya
  12. Frederic Ballester
  13. Marc Benavent
  14. José Burdeos
  15. Alba Català
  16. Èric Castañé
  17. Helena Castañé
  18. Josep Colom
  19. Mireia Feliu
  20. Xavier Gabaldó
  21. Diana Garrido
  22. Pedro Garrido
  23. Joan Gil
  24. Paloma Guelbenzu
  25. Carolina Lozano
  26. Francesc Marimon
  27. Pedro Pardo
  28. Isabel Pujol
  29. Antoni Rabassa
  30. Laia Revuelta
  31. Marta Ríos
  32. Neus Rius-Gordillo
  33. Elisabet Rodríguez-Tomàs
  34. Wojciech Rojewski
  35. Esther Roquer-Fanlo
  36. Noèlia Sabaté
  37. Anna Teixidó
  38. Carlos Vasco
  39. Jordi Camps
  40. Antoni Castro

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Abstract

Many countries have seen a two-wave pattern in reported cases of coronavirus disease-19 during the 2020 pandemic, with a first wave during spring followed by the current second wave in late summer and autumn. Empirical data show that the characteristics of the effects of the virus do vary between the two periods. Differences in age range and severity of the disease have been reported, although the comparative characteristics of the two waves still remain largely unknown. Those characteristics are compared in this study using data from two equal periods of 3 and a half months. The first period, between 15 th March and 30 th June, corresponding to the entire first wave, and the second, between 1 st July and 15 th October, corresponding to part of the second wave, still present at the time of writing this article. Two hundred and four patients were hospitalized during the first period, and 264 during the second period. Patients in the second wave were younger and the duration of hospitalization and case fatality rate were lower than those in the first wave. In the second wave, there were more children, and pregnant and post-partum women. The most frequent signs and symptoms in both waves were fever, dyspnea, pneumonia, and cough, and the most relevant comorbidities were cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and chronic neurological diseases. Patients from the second wave more frequently presented renal and gastrointestinal symptoms, were more often treated with non-invasive mechanical ventilation and corticoids, and less often with invasive mechanical ventilation, conventional oxygen therapy and anticoagulants. Several differences in mortality risk factors were also observed. These results might help to understand the characteristics of the second wave and the behaviour and danger of SARS-CoV-2 in the Mediterranean area and in Western Europe. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0248029
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.10.20246959v2 on medRxiv
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.10.20246959: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: This study was approved by the Comitè d’Ètica i Investigació en Medicaments (Institutional Review Board) of Hospital Universitari de Sant Joan (Resolution CEIM 040/2018, amended on 16 April 2020).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    All calculations were made using the SPSS 25.0 statistical package (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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

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  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.10.20246959v1 on medRxiv