COVID-19 patients with increasing age experience differential time to initial medical care and severity of symptoms

Abstract

We conducted a retrospective observational study in patients with laboratoryconfirmed COVID-19 who received medical care in 688 COVID-19 ambulatory units and hospitals in Mexico City between 24 February 2020 and 24 December 2020, to study history of exposition to confirmed COVID-19 cases, time-to-ambulatory care, time-to-hospitalization, and severity of symptoms at first medical contact, according to age. Patients were categorized into 8 groups (<20, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and 80 years). Symptoms at initial presentation were classified according to a previously validated classification into respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms. Comparisons between time from symptom onset to medical care for every age category were done through variance analyses. Two logistic regression models were applied to determine the risk of presenting symptoms of severity according to age. 286020 patients were included (mean age: 42.8, SD: 16.8 years; 50.4% were women). Mean time from symptom onset to medical care was 4.04 (SD: 3.6) days and increased with older age categories (p<0.0001). The risk of presenting with symptoms of severity was greater with increasing age categories (20-29: