key: cord-1034825-pt5kemp2
authors: Weng, Chien‐Hsiang; Saal, Andrew; Butt, Wesley Wing Wah; Chan, Philip A.
title: Characteristics and Clinical Course and Outcome of COVID‐19 in Hispanic/Latino Patients in a Community Setting: A Retrospective Cohort Study
date: 2020-06-19
journal: J Med Virol
DOI: 10.1002/jmv.26196
sha: 2e8e8e568ed63e2ee828b3109a67b01ac2a4f57e
doc_id: 1034825
cord_uid: pt5kemp2

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), the virus which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), has caused significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest several possible symptoms associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), including cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fever, chills, muscle pain, sore throat, new loss of taste or smell, and less commonly nausea/vomiting/diarrhea.(1) This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Wilcoxon rank-sum tests were applied to compare the statistical significances. All analyses were run using STATA 13.1 (StataCorp, College Station, TX).

Among the 105 patients, 79 (75.2%) were younger than 50 years. Median ages for the younger group was 30.0 years (IQR, 25.0-41.0) and older group was 57.0 years (IQR, 53.0-67.0). 28 (26.7%) % were male. (Table) . Compared to the older group, patients younger than 50 years old were less likely to experience fever during the disease course Among the Hispanic/Latino population, disease presentation demonstrated much lower rates of fever and higher rates of nasal symptoms, myalgia, headache, sore throat and vomiting/diarrhea in our population compared to 43 studies reported in China 2 but at a percentage similar to a recent study from Europe 3 . Significantly higher rate of pneumonia, hospital admission, respiratory oxygen support were seen in the older group.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines suspected cases of COVID-19 as individuals presenting with fever and at least one respiratory symptom, including in returning travelers. 4 In our study, only 51.9% of Hispanic/Latino patients younger than 50 years old experienced fever, while 80.8% of those 50 years and older had fever.

Temperature screening has widely been recommended as the screening tool of choice during the COVID-19 pandemic. 5 Our findings suggest that temperature may be more sensitive for screening in adults over 50 years old and potentially unreliable for younger people, especially in Hispanic/Latino population. We believe that clinicians, especially 

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