Identifying Haematological Changes in Asymptomatic COVID-19 patients and its impact on channelizing laboratory resources
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Abstract
The unresolved COVID pandemic is an enigma for enigma to the doctors worldwide as the virus has been frequently changing its strains and clinical presentation. This has lead to a heavy burden on the hospital and laboratory resources and a need to channelize the resources towards early diagnosis and treatment was strongly felt after the second wave of the pandemic. So at the start of the third wave of the pandemic in India (Jan- Feb 2022) we started closely following up the CBC findings of the COVID positive patients and were slowly able to accurately raise suspicion of COVID in patients presenting with mild symptoms or no symptoms. This helped us in early detection and lesser load on hospital resources. 320 COVID positive patients were analysed against 300 COVID negative controls and a chi square test was run. Hematological findings in early asymptomatic cases of covid display a slightly different pattern from hospitalised patients. As most of the data available is from hospitalised patients, this study could help in identifying patients with a higher probability of Covid positivity. Monocytosis was observed as an early sign in asymptomatic patients. Leucopenia, Anemia, and eosinopenia were not observed in a significant population of patients indicating that these signs probably evolve later during the course of disease.
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