The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) had spread to every continent, with more than 4 million confirmed cases all over the world by May 9, 2020. However, due to lack of awareness of the atypical neurologic symptoms, COVID‐19 patients could be diagnosed and treated improperly. In the present study, researchers revealed that neurologic manifestations were also common in nonhospitalized patients in Wuhan, ringing the danger alarm that neurologic manifestations should be taken into account for COVID‐19 clinical diagnosis, patient care, and following up self‐quarantined and discharged patients.

A total of 153 nonhospitalized patients with confirmed COVID‐19 (tested positive by RT‐PCR) voluntarily participated in this ongoing longitudinal study. The results showed that neurologic manifestations were quite common in nonhospitalized patients in Wuhan (total, 77.8%; CNS, 46.7%; PNS, 69.3%) (Table 1), and the rates were higher than previously reported in hospitalized patients from the same area (36.4% had neurologic manifestations), as a result of meticulous recording and long‐term following‐up.

Table 1 Demographics and clinical characteristics of non‐hospitalized COVID‐19 patients in Wuhan

The present study revealed that a large subset of nonhospitalized COVID‐19 patients in Wuhan developed minimal respiratory symptoms but exhibited neurologic manifestations as the major symptoms. This is distinct from patients infected by SARS, for whom neurologic complications appeared quite late in established disease.

The limitations of this study include the small number of patients and a putative patient selection bias. It is possible that asymptomatic patients who really had no symptoms were less likely to participate the survey, so the rates of different manifestations could be higher than in the overall COVID‐19 patients. Moreover, it is less likely for elderly people who do not often use the social messaging app to participate in this study.

Article Access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mco2.13

Website for MedComm: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/26882663

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