COVID-19 is a major health problem affecting all people worldwide and has a high mortality rate especially in critically ill patients. Although much is known about its different clinical symptoms, there are significant knowledge gaps about its pathology and cellular responses to the virus. Copper plays an essential role in respiration, immune function and free-radical defense. Despite its important action in physiochemical properties, only small amount of copper is presented in biological fluid, none of which presents as free ion form that readily affirms its depletion in critically ill patients. Recent studies confirmed its anti-viral capacity. Closer understanding of copper signaling, its vulnerability, method of assessment and interpretation, administration rout and dosage opens up new perspectives regarding therapeutic copper administration against critically ill COVID-19 patients. So, it seems that physicians should consider copper insufficiency in their critically ill COVID-19 patients. However, an attention should be paid to copper toxicity and estimating the adverse responses depending on copper dose or severity of copper limitation, as well as the duration of copper misbalance.

BACKGROUND: Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that have symptoms ranging from simple symptoms of colds to severe respiratory syndromes. In December 2019, cases of unknown pneumonia first appeared in Wuhan, China. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between occupation and COVID-19 in the Ardabil Imam Khomeini hospital. METHODS: This research was conducted as a cross-sectional and descriptive study. The questionnaires used in this study included demographic information to obtain the required information such as age, sex, clinical symptoms, underlying disease, type of drug used, smoking, occupation, hours of work, number of daily clients, use of mask or shield, type of working hours, weight and height and body mass index, number family, place of residence, role in the family, presence of an infected person in the family, communication with the suspect, observance or non-observance of health protocols. Our sample size consisted of 774 subjects, all patients at the Ardabil Imam Khomeini Hospital. The subjects were selected randomly. RESULTS: The results of this study showed that the mean age of patients was 56.70 years, with a standard deviation of 18.20 years. Three hundred and sixty participants (46.5%) were female, and 414 (53.5%) were male. In terms of occupation distribution, 317 patients (41%) were housewives. In addition, 57 people (7.4%) were farmers or ranchers. CONCLUSION: In general, it can be concluded that due to severity of infection and threat posed by Coronavirus and the risk of infections between different occupations like the taxi driver and medical staff, it is very important to find out what jobs are in the big threat.

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Background Severe coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is associated with dysregulated immune response and extreme inflammatory injury. Considering the role of insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in immune-mediated and inflammatory reactions, this study was conducted to investigate the IGF-1 contribution to the pathogenesis of severe form of COVID-19. Material and methods Sixty-two patients with severe COVID-19 and 52 healthy subjects were enrolled in this study. The serum levels of IGF-1 were measured using a solid-phase enzyme-linked chemiluminescent immunoassay on an Immulite 2000 system (Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. Result The serum levels of IGF-1 had no significant difference in COVID-19 patients compared to the healthy subjects (p = 0.359). There was a positive correlation between IGF-1 and age in the severe COVID-19 patients, while a negative correlation was observed for the serum levels of IGF-1 and age in the control group (r = 0.364, p = 0.036, r = − 0.536, p = 0.001, respectively). Moreover, IGF-1 was remarkably associated with hypertension, neurogenic disease, shock, and nausea in patients with the severe form of COVID-19 (p = 0.031, p = 0.044, p = 0.01, p = 0.03, respectively). Conclusion Our results pointed to the complex role of IGF-1 in the severe form of COVID-19, and its association with clinical parameters, and some risk factors in the severe form of COVID-19. KeywordsIGF-1 • Severe COVID-19 • Age • Clinical parameters Abbreviations COVID-19 Severe coronavirus disease-2019 IGF-1 Insulin growth factor-1 SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 ALI Acute lung injury MOF Multi-organ failure IGF2R Insulin-like growth factor II receptor PI3K/AKT Phosphatidylinositol-3-kinases/protein kinase B MAPK Mitogen-activated protein kinase ARDS Acute respiratory disease syndrome WHO World Health Organization BMI Body mass index BPD Blood pressure diastolic PR Pulse rate RR Respiratory rate Inflammopharmacology Parisa Feizollahi and Somaieh matin contributed equally to this work.