Abstract
To investigate the early epidemic of COVID-19, a total of 176 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Shiyan city, Hubei province, China were surveyed. Our data indicated that the rate of emergence of early confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hubei province outside Wuhan was dependent on migration population, and the second-generation of patients were family clusters originating from Wuhan travelers. Epidemiological investigation indicated that the reproductive number (R(0)) under containment strategies was 1.81, and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers were contagious with a transmission rate of 10.7%. Among the 176 patients, 53 were admitted to the Renmin Hospital of Hubei University of Medicine. The clinical characteristics of these 53 patients were collected and compared based on a positive RT-PCR test and presence of pneumonia. Clinical data showed that 47.2% (25/53) of COVID-19 patients were co-infected with Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and COVID-19 patients coinfected with M. pneumoniae had a higher percentage of monocytes (P < 0.0044) and a lower neutrophils percentage (P < 0.0264). Therefore, it is important to assess the transmissibility of infected asymptomatic individuals for SARS-CoV-2 transmission; moreover, clinicians should be alert to the high incidence of co-infection with M. pneumoniae in COVID-19 patients.