Background: Early identification of patients (pts) with the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and pneumonia is currently challenging Few data is available on validated scores predictors of SARS-CoV-2 infection The Portuguese Society of Intensive Care proposed a risk score, allowing an optimization of hospital resources and adjusted patients' intervention Aims: To validate a clinical score applied to hospitalized pneumonia pts, predicting higher probability of COVID-19, based on a single-center department cohort Methods: The authors performed a retrospective analysis of 207 pneumonia pts admitted in a specialized department for suspected/confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection of a community hospital from 20/03 to 20/05/2020 The score variables and punctuation were registered, in order to determine the independent predictive variables and the score cut-off for COVID-19 Score accuracy was measured by the AUC Results: The validation cohort included 145 pts (62 were excluded due to lack of information on one or more score variables) Mean age was 69 90±17 77 years and 81 (55 86%) were males Thoracic CT typical abnormalities (OR, 12 16;95% CI, 3 32-44 50) and SARS-CoV-2 positive pt contact (OR, 6 56;95% CI, 1 33-32 30) were independent predictive factors A score > 10 can increase suspicion for SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia AUC was 0 82 (95% CI, 0 73-0 91) demonstrating the accuracy of the scoring system forCOVID-19 probability stratification in pneumonia pts Conclusion: The application of this risk score to ward pts admitted for pneumonia may be of value in predicting the risk of COVID-19 Further studies from other centres are needed to validate this score more widely