ABSTRACT
Introduction: As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread around the world, patient care was shifted to outpatient care and home monitoring. This paper describes the characteristics and outcomes of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treated at home during the second and third waves in Saudi Arabia. Materials and methods: Descriptive evaluation of the characteristics and outcome of COVID-19-positive cases enrolled in the home monitoring programme. Results: This study included 14,970 SARS-CoV-2-positive patients (52.6% male). The mean age was 30.8 [standard deviation (SD) 19.9] years. Among the confirmed cases, 14,234 had documented vaccination status; of these, 3943 (27.7%) had not received any doses of COVID-19 vaccine, 1452 (10.2%) had received one dose, 4882 (34.3%) had received two doses, and 3957 (27.8%) had received three doses. The mean number of days in the home monitoring programme was 8.3 (SD 3.5) days. The mean interval from the last vaccine dose until SARS-CoV-2 infection was 116.6 (SD 75.5) days in 7975 patients. The presence of comorbidities was as follows: chronic kidney disease, 340 (2.3%); hypertension, 2569 (17.2%); chronic pulmonary disease, 2539 (17%); smoking, 1711 (11.4%) of 9269 with documented smoking histroy; coronary artery disease, 854 (5.7%); and diabetes mellitus, 1531 (10.3%). The hospitalization rate was 1.8%, and the case fatality rate was 5% of admitted patients, accounting for 0.11% of all cases. The mean age of patients who died was 76.6 (SD 17.7) years, which was higher compared with the mean age of those who survived [30.8 (SD 19.9) years] (P<0.001). Conclusion: Utilization of a home monitoring programme was effective and safe for patients with COVID-19 who were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms.
ABSTRACT
Internet of Things (IoT) technology is rapidly developing and it makes the connectivity of various smart objects possible for many applications, such as industry, military, education and health. Recently, Coronavirus spreads rapidly over the world, and there are no specific treatments for it at this time. Therefore, preventing infection and monitoring its symptoms such as fever and shortness of breath, is very important. Since Coronavirus is a very fast spreading disease, and the social distancing is very important to prevent the infection, the need to a mechanism which is smart enough for monitoring the symptoms of the isolated people without direct communication with them is necessary. This paper presents a design and simulation of COVID-19 Symptoms Monitoring Mechanism (CSMM) based on IoT and wireless sensor network to monitor people during their quarantine;especially the eldest who suffer from chronic diseases and immune deficiency, hence they are more likely to develop serious illness. The mechanism depends on remote monitoring of the patient health data. The monitoring process can be done by the doctor or medical provider. This system can be easily used to detect an urgent or abnormal case, for instance, when there is a highly fever or difficulty breathing. As a result, the system can issue an alarm to the doctor or medical provider by sending urgent SMS including the time and patient condition in order to intervene and save the patient life without any delay.