Organising football matches with spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic: What can we learn from the Amir Cup Football Final of Qatar 2020? A call for action.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a potential threat to professional sporting events when they eventually return to their usual calendar with spectators' capacity of football stadiums usually exceeding 40,000 seats for important events. Hence, a strategy for safe return to sporting events is needed in the COVID-19 pandemic to pave the way towards a new normalcy. We reviewed the guidelines and policies implemented in organising the Amir Cup Football Final of Qatar, which hosted about 20,000 fans. The authors evaluated the publicly available information on the official websites of the various organizations involved and highlight the importance and usefulness of the Covid-19 Rapid Antigen Assay-Kit as a tool for screening sports spectators as well as the importance of a rigorous spectator pathway, including their accurate traceability thanks to a specific mobile phone application. Despite the surging of COVID-19 all over the world, a big football event with around 20,000 spectators in the same stadium has been hosted under strongly controlled preventative measures. These preventative measures show that it is possible to organize a major football match held outdoors, with the presence of thousands of supporters. This article is a call for action for the organisers of such events where the supporters' health status is traceable to provide the scientific community with actual data of post-event infection rates. Therefore, it is suggested to consider using procedures like the ones described in the present article as a potential model in the process of organizing big sporting events with spectators in times of COVID-19.

Is there a diurnal variation of COVID-19 patients warranting presentation to the health centre? A chronobiological observational cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The circadian clock regulates the function of the immune system, the replication of viruses, and the magnitude of infections. The aim of this study was to analyse whether hospital attendance in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients presents a diurnal variation. METHODS: Data from the electronic medical records of 1094 COVID-19 patients who presented to a Health Centre in Qatar during the month of July 2020 was retrospectively analysed. The following demographic (i.e. time of day (TOD), sex, age), clinical (i.e. cycle threshold (CT), temperature, oxy-haemoglobin saturation and resting heart-rate), biochemical (i.e. uraemia, glycaemia and albuminia) and haematological (i.e. leukocytes, erythrocytes ad platelets) parameters were collected. RESULTS: Univariate analysis showed a significant effect of TOD on hospital admission (p < 0.001), with patients attending the health care centre more during the active behavioural phase (08h00-00h00) compared to the resting phase (00h00-08h00). COVID-19 infection blunted the circadian rhythms of core body temperature, neutrophils and leukocytes family and shifted the circadian rhythms of resting heart-rate and uraemia. Correlation analysis showed a near perfect negative correlation between the age of patients and the TOD (r=-0.97), with older patients attending the care centre earlier during the day. CONCLUSION: COVID-19 infection affected the circadian rhythms of the host through disrupting the circadian rhythms of core temperature and innate immunity mediators. Old patients attend the health care centre earlier compared to younger ones. However, CT during polymerase chain reaction-test was unaffected by the TOD, which limits the conclusion that COVID-19 viral infection exhibits diurnal variation.

Covid-19 and diabetes in primary care - How do hematological parameters present in this cohort?

Objectives: Changes in hematological parameters are becoming evident as important early markers of COVID-19. Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) has been shown to be associated with increased severity of COVID-19. In this study, we aim to explore the various hematological variables in COVID-19 positive patients with T2DM, so as to act early and improve patient outcomes.Methods: Medical e-records of seventy adult patients with T2DM who were COVID-19 positive have been analyzed in this retrospective cohort study. Demographic, clinical and laboratory parameters for these patients were examined.Results: Of the seventy patients with T2DM, 48.88% had poorly controlled diabetes. 70.69% were pyrexial, 56.25% were tachycardic and 38.58% were asymptomatic on presentation. Amongst the hematological parameters, anemia was seen in 10% of males and 15.38% of females. 20% had a high red-blood-cell-distribution-width (RDW). 7.27% had thrombocytosis and 3.64% had thrombocytopenia. 73.3% had a high platelet-distribution-width (PDW) and 44.44% had an increased mean-platelet-volume (MPV). 16.36% were neutropenic and 16.67% had lymphocytopenia.Conclusion: Diabetic COVID-19 positive patients have been shown to have prominent manifestations of the hemopoietic-system with varied hematological profiles. Recognizing the implications of these variables early in primary-care, can help clinicians aid management decisions and dictate early referral to secondary-care services, to help improve prognosis.