ABSTRACT
Background: Health care workers (HCWs) are crucial to maintaining healthcare services during COVID-19 pandemic. One of the greatest risks to healthcare system is the potentially high rate of infections due to COVID-19 among HCWs. Objective: To summarize the epidemiologic characteristics, clinical features, radiologic findings, laboratory data, and outcomes of health care workers diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Sohag University Hospitals. Patients and methods: A retrospective study included 101 HCWs who were proved to have COVID-19. HCWs with COVID-19 were categorized to asymptomatic cases, mild cases which included patients with mild clinical symptoms and normal lung computed tomography (CT), and moderate cases which included patients with mild or moderate clinical features and abnormal lung CT. Results: 89.11% of infected HCWs had no definite history of contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19. A considerable percent of the patients presented with non-respiratory symptoms such as GIT, and neurological symptoms. Patients who had a moderate respiratory illness were significantly older than those who had a mild respiratory illness and were more likely to have diabetes. Home isolation was recommended in most cases (n=73). Several cases (n=24) preferred isolation in university undergraduate houses, and 4 patients were treated at isolation hospital, 2 of them needed oxygen therapy. Conclusion: COVID-19 in HCWs exhibited a wide spectrum of disease severity. Symptom-based screening for COVID-19 in HCWs may underestimate the affected number as there is a considerable percent of asymptomatic cases. For HCWs’ safety, the use of protective personal equipment and adherence to proper hand-hygiene practice are important protective tools during this pandemic. Also, there is a growing need for educational and training programs for all levels of HCWs. © 2021, Ain Shams University Faculty of Medicine. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
In March 2020, Saudi Arabia reported that the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread to its territory, originating from China. In this study, a new simulation model estimates and forecasts the number of infected subjects with COVID-19 in the upcoming weeks, based on different parameters, in two major cities in Saudi Arabia, namely Riyadh (the capital) and Jeddah, the second largest city. Unlike most of the recent simulators, our simulator attempts to focus on real data related to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, this paper investigates the parameters that can help to understand and predict the behavior of the biological curve, particularly, in Saudi Arabia. The proposed forecasting model considers several parameters, such as the infection rate, the virus lifetime, the number of infected people, the number of uninfected people, the recovery rate, the death rate, the recovery period, the period of simulation (in days), and the social distancing. The study investigates different scenarios using random test data and real data, where the results show the importance of two parameters on the pandemic spread;the infection rate and the walking distance. Therefore, this work can be used to raise the awareness of public and officials to the seriousness of the current pandemic.