Clinical characteristics of patients infected with novel coronavirus wild strain, Delta variant strain and Omicron variant strain in Quanzhou: A real‑world study

This study aimed to investigate the clinical features of patients infected with novel coronavirus wild strains, Delta variant strains and Omicron variant strains to provide a reference for early clinical diagnosis and prognostic assessment. The demographic, clinical symptoms and ancillary examination data of 47 patients with novel coronavirus wild type strain infection, 18 with Delta variant infection and 20 with Omicron variant infection admitted to the First Hospital of Quanzhou affiliated with Fujian Medical University were collected and analyzed. The novel coronavirus wild strain and Delta strain were the predominant clinical types; patients infected with the Omicron strain were mainly asymptomatic. Fever and fatigue were the main clinical manifestations in the wild strain and Delta strain groups, whereas dry cough, nasal congestion, sore throat and fever were common clinical manifestations in the Omicron strain group. The Delta strain and Omicron variant groups had fewer comorbidities than the wild-type strain group, but no significant reduction was observed in the negative conversion time of nucleic acids. Significant differences were found in the neutrophil count/lymphocyte count ratio, lymphocyte count, eosinophil count, red blood cell count, hemoglobin level, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, prothrombin time, international normalized ratio and plasma D-dimer, PH, PaO(2), lactic acid and albumin levels among the three groups. Patients infected with the Omicron strain in Quanzhou presented with mild symptoms of the upper respiratory tract as the primary clinical manifestation and had few comorbidities and a good prognosis; however, the negative conversion time of the new coronavirus nucleic acid was still considerably long.