Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) initially outbroke in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and promptly became a pandemic worldwide within the following two months. The public health emergencies resulting from COVID-19 are negatively impacting the mental health of the population and increasing the incidence of psychological crises (Xiang et al., 2020). Early identification of populations in the first stages of psychological crisis will allow for the efficient implementation of interventional strategies (National Health Commission of China, 2020). The clinical characteristics of psychological distress have not been well established across the populations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, although a general increased level of mental distress has been reported from both the general public and frontline medical personnel (Kang et al., 2020; Qiu et al., 2020). Therefore, we designed a pilot and cross-sectional study to identify the characteristics of psychological distress across populations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The app-based, anonymous questionnaire was designed to survey the level of psychological distress, and the study was conducted in the Zhongshan, one of prefecture-level cities in Guangdong province, PR China, from February 15 to February 29, 2020. A total of 205 participants responded and completed the questionnaires. The Chinese version 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale were employed to evaluate the prevalence and severity of psychological distress within patients newly recovery from COVID-19 infection, individuals under quarantine, and the general public. A total score of≥ 10 for both the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 was defined as depression and anxiety respectively. The severity of psychological distress was classified with the standard thresholds: Minimal or none (0–4), Mild (5–9), Moderate (10–14), Severe (> 15) for both the PHQ-9 and GAD-7. An increased prevalence of depression (29.2%) was found predominately in patients who experienced COVID-19 infection (p= 0.016), while the prevalence of anxiety was not statistically different across the three groups (p= 0.154) as shown in Table 1. Trends for an increased prevalence of depression comorbid with anxiety (p= 0.086) were identified in both patients who experienced COVID-19 infection (21.1%) and the general public (22.4%) compared to those in quarantine. Both patients who experienced COVID-19 infection (19.3%) and the general public (14.3%) also had a greater proportion of severe depressive symptom (p= 0.002) as shown in Table 1. Moreover, patients who experienced COVID-19 infection and the general public more likely to demonstrate depressed mood (p= 0.038) and somatic symptoms (all p< 0.01) in the sub-items of the PHQ-9, compared to individuals under quarantine. Anxiety-like behavior, including becoming easily annoyed or irritable, manifested primarily in the general public and patients who experienced COVID-19 infection (p< 0.01). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study aimed at exploring the psychological health across populations with different levels of exposure to the COVID-19 epidemic. Our study revealed differential levels of psychological distress in patients who experienced COVID-19 infection, individuals under quarantine, and the general public. The vulnerability to psychological distress across populations in the COVID-19 pandemic could be attributable to various factors, including gender, social support, specific experiences with COVID-19 infection, length of isolation, and amount of exposure to the media (Brooks et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020). The�…