Study design and participants

This was a single center, retrospective study. The Cancer Center, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, which is only 600m straight-line distance from the Huanan seafood market was designated to receive patients with COVID-19 during the disease outbreak in Wuhan, China.

We retrospectively analyzed all patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in 4 inpatient wards from Feb. 13 to Feb. 29. 2020. The study inclusion criteria were: (1) age ≥ 18 years, (2) laboratory confirmed COVID-19 by viral nucleic acid test using real-time RT-PCR detection in samples taken from the respiratory tract of patients. All patients were followed up for 3 weeks after they were admitted to the hospital. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (committee’s reference number 0049) and was performed in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki and the Department of Health and Human Services Belmont Report.