Characteristics of COVID-19 at a non-COVID tertiary pulmonary care centre in Delhi, India

The pandemic of COVID-19 has emerged as a serious health crisis globally and India too has been extensively affected with 604,641 active cases reported, till date. The present study focuses on the demographic, clinical and laboratory profile of such patients from a tertiary level non-COVID respiratory care hospital. This is a retrospective observational study. Seventy-seven sick patients fulfilling COVID suspect criteria were admitted to the isolation area. Their RT-PCR test was done from the designated laboratory and 35 of them were confirmed to be COVID-19 patients. The detailed demographic, clinical and laboratory profile of these COVID-19 patients was studied. The mean age was 46 +/- 17 years with male predominance (57%). Majority of the cases (83%) were symptomatic. The most common symptom was cough (66%) followed by breathlessness and fever. Nineteen (54.3%) patients had one or the other co-morbidity and 16 (45.7%) had chronic lung diseases as one of the comorbidities. Nearly half of the patients (51%) required supplementary oxygen on presentation. Two patients were put on invasive mechanical ventilation while 4 patients required non-invasive ventilation before being shifted to the COVID hospital. Hence, it can be concluded that COVID-19 in patients of chronic respiratory diseases manifests with higher prevalence of symptoms and also higher severity of disease. Further, the symptomatology of COVID-19 closely mimics the acute exacerbation of chronic lung diseases, so cautious screening and testing should be done, especially at the pulmonary department.