Clinical epidemiological characteristics of suspicious and confirmed patients with COVID-19 in a community with quarantine regime

Introduction: For a community densely populated with high epidemiologic risk, infectious diseases could present a quick spreading. Objective: To describe the clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of suspicious and confirmed patients with COVID-19 during the quarantine. Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional study of 62 suspicious and confirmed patients with COVID-19 who were in quarantine was carried out, belonging to the Santa Bárbara neighborhood in Santiago de Cuba, from January to February, 2021. The information was obtained from the epidemiologic surveys. The following variables were analyzed: age, sex, comorbidities, type of case, clinical state, result of the PCR, type of contact, signs and symptoms. Results: There was a prevalence of the female sex (59.7 %) and elderly over 60 years (32.3 %). Among the comorbidities, hypertension (40.3 %) had the greater frequency. There was a 67.3 % of symptomatic non confirmed patients. Suspicious patients with home contacts stood out with 82,1 %. Between the signs and symptoms, fever (41.2 %) and diarrhea (40 %) prevailed among those confirmed. All the asymptomatic patients were positive to the virus (100.0 %). Conclusion: The main clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of the suspicious and confirmed patients with COVID-19 in quarantine were presented to a great extent, which became an important instrument to adopt decisions in scenarios of high epidemiologic risk.