Signs and symptoms
Among 9 studies[15, 17, 20, 22, 23, 25-27] reporting the clinical characteristics of fever in Covid-19, the incidence was 93.1% (552 in 593) in Severe group and 83.1% (795 in 957) in Non-severe group. With pooled OR of 1.93 (95%CI: 0.94 to 3.96), it was demonstrated severe Covid-19 patient was associated with slightly increased risk of fever. But meta-analysis did not reveal any statistical difference (P=0.07). Consistently, with pooled OR of 1.79 for expectoration (95%CI: 0.79 to 4.05, P=0.17), 1.43 for headache (95%CI: 0.91 to 2.26, P=0.12), 1.75 for fatigue (95%CI: 0.89 to 3.44, P=0.11) and 2.22 for myalgia (95%CI: 0.65 to 7.52, P=0.20), it was demonstrated that patients with expectoration[15, 17, 22, 23], headache[15, 17, 20, 22], fatigue[16, 17, 20, 25] and myalgia[15, 17, 27] were unrelated to severity of Covid-19.
In 5 trials reporting data on dyspnea[15, 20, 22, 23, 25], 82 of 192 patients in Severe group (42.7%) and 52 of 477 in Non-severe group (10.9%) were found to have dyspnea. With pooled OR of 7.83 (95 % CI: 1.75 to 34.99), it was demonstrated that patients with dyspnea were more likely to progress into severe Covid-19 too (P=0.007). The outcome was explicitly expressed in Table 2.