Purpose: diagnosis COVID‐19 pneumonia ‐ to identify differences in CT imaging and clinical manifestations between pneumonia patients with and without COVID‐19, and to develop and validate a diagnostic model for COVID‐19 based on radiological semantic and clinical featuresDesign: cross‐sectional multicentre retrospective studyRecruitment:
cases: consecutive patients with COVID‐19 admitted in 5 independent hospitals
controls: at the same period, another 66 consecutive pneumonia patients without COVID‐19 from Meizhou People’s HospitalSample size: n = 136 (cases = 70)Inclusion criteria: patients admitted with COVID‐19 pneumonia (cases) and patients admitted with non‐COVID‐19 pneumonia (controls)Exclusion criteria: not specified for cases except those from 1 hospital (Meizhou), for cases and controls in Meizhou: after chest CT neoplasm, tuberculosis, pulmonary oedema, pulmonary contusion, aspiration pneumonia, bronchitis, any local or systemic treatment before CT scan, normal CT image without epidemiological history