Background. There is clinical importance to investigate the disease progression through potential biomarkers of SARS-CoV-2 infection. In the present study, we aim to evaluate the significance of inflammatory markers in different categories of COVID-19 in admitted patients. Methods. In a single-center, observational study of 50 in-hospital patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to the intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital in Peshawar, infection biomarkers, including hs-CRP, serum ferritin, serum creatinine, ALT, ALP, cardiac troponin-I, and IL-6 were analyzed. Results. The median age was 61.3 years. 70% (35) were male while 30% (15) were female. We noted significantly increased hs-CRP (9.32 mg/dL ± 10.03) and ferritin levels (982.3 ng/ml ± 601.9). A noteworthy increase was observed in neutrophil count (11.05 × 109/L) and a decrease was observed in lymphocyte count (0.27 × 109/L) ( P < 0.05 ), and the platelet count was borderline decreased (244.1 × 109/L). IL-6 levels were markedly increased in all admitted patients (100.2 pg/ml ± 122.2 pg/ml). Conclusion. The serum levels of CRP, troponin-I, ALP, ALT, serum creatinine, and ferritin are markedly increased in COVID-19 patients. Increased CRP and ferritin levels were also associated with secondary bacterial infection and poor clinical outcomes.

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The COVID-19 has brought the challenge of survival for all the companies around the globe. This pandemic totally changed the procedures of managing and governing the firms with the help of regulations of the state. The said disaster has also hit the existence of the major companies in different sectors of the economy. Consequently, it has drawn the attention of all the practitioners of the Corporate Governance along with the policy makers of the economy. The focus of this article is to see the utility and practicability of different regulations and practices of the corporate governance to cope with the current emerging challenges of COVID-19 in corporate sector. Furthermore, the current study takes some valuable insights from the leading business journal articles and find the key mechanisms of the corporate governance, which help the companies to deal with the recent crisis. These mechanisms could be effective for the different business units during this dilemma of COVID-19. This review intends to change the management philosophy of the different companies. Furthermore, this study aims to provide them with the latest mechanisms of corporate governance, which are helping the companies for their successful progression of business affairs in this tough time of Corona Virus. These mechanisms include presence of risk management committee, more attention to the stakeholders, family ownership, and block holders. This paper concludes that all the above said mechanisms of corporate governance are very helpful during the crisis of COVID-19. The study highlights that this pandemic has affected the governance mechanisms of al the establishments, therefore firms should be prepared for such crisis in future by paying attention to the different corporate governance mechanisms. The study recommends that certain practices of the corporate governance are very helpful in coping the challenges posed by the pandemic of COVID-19.

The crisis of COVID-19 comes with a calamitous economic stance. The South Asian countries experience their nastiest economic performance in the last four decenniums, and a moiety of the countries are falling into recession. This paper checks the impact of the first,second and third waves of COVID-19 outbreak on the stock market indices of all the South Asian countries, including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, SriLanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, and Bhutan. The study has utilized the Event Study Methodology and results exhibit that COVID-19 decreases the mean returns of all the stock market indices and increases their volatility,which designates that Corona does influence all the stock markets of South Asia in decrementing their returns and incrementing volatility. Overall, the negative effect of the first wave of COVID-19 is not paramount across all the indices except the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), albeit its second wave did not affect any of the stock market indices significantly. In contrast,the third wave affects the stock markets indices of Pakistan (PSX) and Afghanistan (AFX).