Background: Nowadays there is a global crises due to the emergence and spread of corona virus (CoV-19). This is a life threatening problem at present as it causes the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (SARS-CoV). Aim: To explore the value of changes in routine hematological parameters for prediction of COVID-19 disease severity among admitted patients. Study design: Experimental study. Methodology: Patients (n=222) having COVID-19 were enrolled. They were divided into two groups depending on the severity of disease. They were admitted into ITC and non-ITC. All patients underwent CBC and inflammatory markers. Various hematological markers were used as prognostic markers. Independent t-test and Chi square were applied and p value of <0.05 was taken significant. Results: Mean age for ITC patients was 49.40±16.26 while the mean age for patients with mild disease was 40.88±15.48. NLR was significantly increased in ITC patients (p value<0.0001). Among biochemical parameters, serum ferritin, CRP and LDH were significantly increased in patients with severe disease (p value<0.001). D-Dimers were elevated in 68.75% patients of group-A and 17% patients in group-B with p-value<0.0001. Conclusion: We concluded that NLR and d-Dimers are the best hematology parameters in order to predict severity of disease. Keywords: Covid-19, d-Dimers, NLR,NLM and Hematological Parameters.

Background: Erythrocyte sedimentation rate is a common test used as an assessment tool for inflammation since many years. Aim: To compare erythrocyte sedimentation rate by automated ESR analyzer working on vision principle against conventional manual Westergren method. Study design: Cross sectional study. Methodology: A total number of 120 samples were taken from routine hospital patients whom ESR was requested through non-probability consecutive sampling following ethical approval. Samples were subjected to ESR estimation by manual Westergren and automated methods. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 22. Independent sample t-test used to compare erythrocyte sedimentation rate by automated ESR analyzer working on vision principle against conventional manual Westergren method with p-value ≤0.05 as significant. Pearson correlation was also applied. Results: Mean ± SD for Manual Westergren method was 39.37±25.486 and Automated Vision principle was 25.83±21.015. Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances have p-values for ESR in patients with Manual Westergren method & Automated Vision principle was 0.018 with F-value 5.670. There was a non-linear relationship between the two methods (P value < 0.01). Practical Implication: This study helped in exploring reliability of different ESR estimation methods as ESR results have notable impact on patient diagnosis and follow-up. With increasing demands and burden of patients in labs, new reliable and quick techniques for ESR determination are need of hour. Conclusion: It was concluded that automated methods showed good correlation to manual Westergren method thus are reliable for ESR estimation. However, manual Westergren remained gold standard procedure for ESR estimation. Keywords: Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate, Reliability, Westergren Method and Automated Method.