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Lymphocytes in COVID-19 Patients

Zhixing K Pan

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has so far caused over 108.2 million confirmed cases and over 2.3 million deaths all over the world as of February 14, 2021. Among in-hospital patients with COVID-19, the mortality was approximately 28%, though, the percentage increased to over 60% among critically ill patients, and over 80% among those who require mechanical ventilation. Treatment of these severe patients is becoming one of the major challenges. It has been hypothesized that a cytokine storm is the main cause of disease progression which leads to acute respiratory distress syndrome and organ failure. For this reason, corticosteroids and/or immunomodulatory drugs have been lengthily used during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. However, the clinical efficacy of corticosteroids remains controversial. Moreover, corticosteroid therapy was described to stay the clearance of SARS-CoV-2, and a high dose of corticosteroid was found to be related with death in severe COVID-19.3 Therefore, to classify patients most likely benefit from corticosteroid and give precise corticosteroid therapy is essential for the management of severe COVID-19 and saving lives.