Background Worldwide, most of educational institutions have moved to online electronic learning methods because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 8, 2020, the Saudi Ministry of Education announced remote learning for public and private schools and universities as a preventive and precautionary measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The objective of this study was to explore the e-learning experience of the students of the colleges of health sciences with regard to the technical preparedness, academic achievements, e-learning advantages and limitations. A well-structured and validated questionnaire on a five-point Likert scale and open-ended questions about their e-learning experience was distributed to a heterogeneous purposive sample of the health sciences students in Saudi Arabian universities. Results Of the 1288 respondents, of various demographical features a relatively higher proportion of 58.2 % agreed that they had enough information about the online learning. However, the proportion who reported receiving adequate guidance, technical support, and having satisfactory hardware and internet access to online learning were 48.1 %, 42, and 35.4 %, respectively. Of all participants, 40.8 % agreed that they had gained a good understanding of their courses learning outcomes. Only 30.0 % agreed that the quality of the online teaching was similar to traditional classes and 56.1 % agreed that the online learning is unsuitable for the medical sciences studies. E-learning advantages mentioned were the flexible accessibility of the learning materials, time, effort, and money saving, acquiring and improving technical and self-learning skills, health safety, interaction without shyness, and better academic accomplishment. On the other hand, disadvantages and difficulties included inadequate tools to facilitate online learning, poor internet connection, lack of technological skills by the educators and students. In addition, there was inadequate or lack of practical classes, lack of a unified clear policy for the conduct of online classes and exams and grade distribution, limited online exam time. Conclusions The sudden shift to e-learning without prior preparedness has revealed some pitfalls that need to be adjusted. The initial findings were considered satisfactory for such a new experience for both learners and students. However, there is a great chance for improving and expanding the e-learning process.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths. Beyond there being no available antiviral therapy, stimulating protective immunity by vaccines is the best option for managing future infections. Development of a vaccine for a novel virus is a challenging effort that may take several years to accomplish. This mini-review summarizes the immunopathological responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and discusses advances in the development of vaccines and immunotherapeutics for COVID-19.

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The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global health systems is a major concern. To plan and allocate resources to treat COVID-19 patients and provide insights into the financial sustainability of healthcare systems in fighting the future pandemic, measuring the costs to treat COVID-19 patients is deemed necessary. As such, we conducted a retrospective, real-world observational study to measure the direct medical cost of treating COVID-19 patients at a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia. The analysis was conducted using primary data and a mixed methodology of micro and macro-costing. Between July 2020 and July 2021, 287 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were admitted and their data were analyzed. COVID-19 infection was confirmed by RT-PCR or serologic tests in all the included patients. There were 60 cases of mild to moderate disease, 148 cases of severe disease, and 79 critically ill patients. The cost per case for mild to moderate disease, severe disease, and critically ill was 2003 USD, 14,545 USD, and 20,188 USD, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference in the cost between patients with comorbidities and patients without comorbidities (P-value 0.008). Across patients with and without comorbidities, there was a significant difference in the cost of the bed, laboratory work, treatment medications, and non-pharmaceutical equipment. The cost of treating COVID-19 patients is considered a burden for many countries. More studies from different private and governmental hospitals are needed to compare different study findings for better preparation for the current COVID-19 as well as future pandemics.