Follow-up of patients with COVID-19 by the Delta variant after hospital discharge in Guangzhou, Guandong, China

Abstract

The B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has contributed to a new increment in cases across the globe. We conducted a prospective follow-up of COVID-19 cases to explore the recurrence and potential propagation risk of the Delta variant and discuss potential explanations for the infection recurrence. A prospective, non-interventional follow-up of discharged patients who had SARS-CoV-2 infections by the Delta variant in Guangdong, China, from May 2021 to June 2021 was conducted. The subjects were asked to complete a physical health examination and undergo nucleic acid testing and antibody detection for the laboratory diagnosis of COVID-19. In total, 20.33% (25/123) of patients exhibited recurrent positive results after discharge. All patients with infection recurrence were asymptomatic and showed no abnormalities in the pulmonary computed tomography. The time from discharge to the recurrent positive testing was usually between 1-33 days, with a mean time of 9.36 days. The cycle threshold from the real-time polymerase chain reaction assay that detected the recurrence of positivity ranged from 27.48 to 39.00, with an average of 35.30. The proportion of vaccination in the non-recurrent group was higher than that in the recurrently positive group (26% vs. 4%; χ 2 = 7.902; P < 0.05). Two months after discharge, the most common symptom was hair loss and 59.6% of patients had no long-term symptoms at all. It is possible for the Delta variant SARS-CoV-2 patients after discharge to show recurrent positive results of nucleic acid detection; however, there is a low risk of continuous community transmission. Both, the physical and mental quality of life of discharged patients were significantly affected. Our results suggest that it makes sense to implement mass vaccination against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.

A one-year follow-up study of systematic impact of long COVID symptoms among patients post SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants infection in Shanghai, China

“…In our cohort, we found a reduced proportion of long COVID symptoms occurred in Omicron-infected individuals compared to the previous strains reported in other studies, and most symptoms disappeared one year after discharge from hospital. Previous studies have shown that the proportion of Chinese patients with wild-type strains who had at least one clinical sequelae 3 months to 24 months after discharge was 29.9% to 76% [ 20–23 ] and the proportion of patients with Delta strains who had at least one clinical sequelae two months after discharge was 40.4% [ 24 ], whereas in the present study only 8.89% of patients reported symptoms of long COVID six months after discharge, a much lower proportion than in previous studies. The same downward trend was seen in other countries [ 25 , 26 ].…”

Construction of regulatory network for alopecia areata progression and identification of immune monitoring genes based on multiple machine-learning algorithms

“…Hair loss, one of the most common disease complications, severely damages the patient's appearance and psychological state, 25 and AA is the second most common non-scarring alopecia disease, with a prevalence rate of 0.1%–0.2% worldwide. 26 If AAP progresses to AT/AU, the difficulty and cost of treatment increases significantly.…”