COVID-19 is a disease with heterogeneous clinical appearances. Most patients are asymptomatic or exhibit mild to moderate symptoms; approximately 15% progress to severe pneumonia and about 5% are eventually admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), septic shock and/ or multiple organ failure. ICU patients respond poorly to currently available treatments and exhibit a high mortality rate. 1-3 Inadequate identification of the determinants of fatal outcomes is one of the major obstacles to the improvement of the outcomes in severe COVID-19 patients. A previous study reported a scoring system (COVID-GRAM) which accurately predicted the occurrence of critical illness in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. 4 Damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), or alarmins, are a number of molecules, released by stressed cells undergoing microbial infection or sterile injury, that act as danger signals to promote and exacerbate the inflammatory response. 5,6 Of note, the serum level of S100A8/A9 and HMGB1 was found to be correlated with both the severity of pathogen-associated tissue damage and excessive cytokine storm. 7 Despite the hypothesis that S100A8/A9 and HMGB1 are significantly involved in COVID-19, so far, no study has yet tried to substantiate the hypothesis. In this study, we aimed to define the role of S100A8/ A9 and HMGB1 in progression to a fatal outcome and develop clinically relevant risk strata for COVID-19 patients. A total of 121 patients were enrolled in this retrospective study, of which 40 patients were in ICU and 81 patients in general wards at enrollment (Table S1). ICU Patients had much higher COVID-GRAM risk scores in comparison to those in general wards. Complications, including ARDS, sepsis, septic shock, secondary infection, acute renal injury, acute cardiac injury or failure, were more frequent in CCOVID-19 patients admitted to ICU. As of the cutoff date of April 30, 2020, most of non-ICU patients (96.3%) had been discharged alive, while 82.5% of ICU patients had died in ICU.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic can have a profound impact on the mental health of patients who survived the illness. However, little is known about the prevalence rate of mental health disorders among hospital discharged COVID-19 patients and its associated factors. A cross-sectional survey of hospital discharged patients was conducted April 11-22, 2020 in Wuhan, China (where the pandemic began). 675 participants completed the survey, including 90 (13.3%) medical staff (physicians and nurses who had been ill). We used Fisher's exact test and multivariable logistic regression methods to explore the risk factors associated with mental health problems (anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms associated with COVID-19 hospitalization). Adverse mental health effects of COVID-19 are evident after discharge from the hospital, with sleep difficulties highlighted as a central issue. As we found that perceived discrimination was a central predictor of mental illness, preventing and addressing social stigma associated with COVID-19 may be crucial for improving mental health for recovered patients.

This review summarizes the key results of recently published studies on the effects of dietary change and nutritional intervention on the human microbiome from around the world, focusing on the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It first explores mechanisms that might explain the ability of fiber-rich foods to suppress the incidence and mortality from westernized diseases, notably cancers of the colon, breast, liver, cardiovascular, infectious, and respiratory diseases, diabetes,

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