As statins decrease the progression of sepsis and its related mortality, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of atorvastatin on survival and symptom improvement in hospitalized patients with COVID‐19. This randomized controlled trial was performed on 156 hospitalized patients with COVID‐19 in Bojnourd city in 2021. Patients were randomly divided into comparison (standard therapy: hydroxychloroquine + Kaletra®) and intervention groups (atorvastatin 20 mg, SD, plus standard therapy). The main outcomes were the rate of symptom improvement, duration of hospitalization, need for intubation, and mortality rate. In this study, seven patients died, two patients (2.6%) in the comparison group and five (6.6%) in the intervention group. The mean hospitalization days ( p = 0.001), the pulse rate ( p = 0.004), and the frequency of hospitalization in the ICU ward (18.4% vs. 1.3%) were longer and greater in the intervention group. The remission probability in the comparison group was greater ( p = 0.0001). The median hospitalization days in the intervention group was longer ( p < 0.001) and remission in the comparison group occurred 1.71 times sooner (hazard ratio = 1.70, 95% confidence interval = 1.22–2.38, p = 0.002). Totally, adding atorvastatin to the standard regime in this study increased hospitalization days and imposed negative effects on symptom improvement in hospitalized patients with COVID‐19.

In late 2019, an outbreak of respiratory disease named COVID-19 started in the world. To date, thousands of cases of infection are reported worldwide. Most researchers focused on epidemiology and clinical features of COVID-19, and a small part of studies was performed to evaluate the genetic characteristics of this virus. Regarding the high price and low availability of sequencing techniques in developing countries, here we describe a rapid and inexpensive method for the detection of D614G mutation in SARS-CoV-2. Using bioinformatics databases and software, we designed the PCR-RFLP method for D614G mutation detection. We evaluated 144 SARS-CoV-2 positive samples isolated in six months in Northeastern Iran. Our results showed that the prevalent type is S-D in our isolates, and a small number of isolated belongs to the S-G type. Of 144 samples, 127 (88.2%) samples have belonged to type S-D, and 13 (9%) samples typed S-G. The first S-G type was detected on 2020 June 10. We have little information about the prevalence of D614G mutation, and it seems that the reason is the lack of cheap and fast methods. We hope that this method will provide more information on the prevalence and epidemiology of D614G mutations worldwide.

Objective: To derive the pooled estimate of chest computed tomography (CT) findings in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Methods: A comprehensive systematic search was conducted according to the PRISMA checklist from January 2020 to September 2020 in electronic databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus based on search terms in title and texts. Original descriptive studies with epidemiological parameters of interest were included into the systematic review and meta-analysis. Results: Totally 54 articles comprised of 4 879 patients with a mean age of 49.05 years were eligible for this study. The pooled prevalence for abnormal CT images was 86.0%. Pooled prevalence for ground-glass opacity was 68.0%, 71.0% for bilateral abnormalities, 47.0% for mixed ground-glass opacity and consolidation and 29.0% for consolidation. In addition, 64.0% of lesions were peripheral, and 12.0% were central while 28.0% were both central and peripheral. Furthermore, 61.0% of lower lungs were involved, and 7.0% and 5.0% of the cases presented with pleural effusion and pericardial effusion, respectively. Besides, 11% of the cases showed lymphadenopathy, and 37% had air broncho gram sign. The pooled prevalence of other chest CT findings ranged from 8.0% to 65.0%. Conclusions: Chest CT can be used as predictive tools for the detection of COVID-19 disease along with clinical manifestations and the RT-PCR method.