Abstracts by keywords: symptomatic patients
At the end of December 2020, Germany began vaccinating the population against Covid-19. By February 2021, several vaccines had already been approved in many countries including Germany [1]. However, until June 2021, the Covid-19 vaccination could only be offered to certain groups of people due to limited vaccine availability. The prioritization was based on the level of risk of severe or fatal courses of Covid-19 disease as well as on the basis of occupational exposure or close contact with vulnerable groups of people. The highest priority was, among others, people over 80 and employees of medical facilities or retirement homes. High priority included people over 70 and people with defined serious chronic illnesses (e.g. dementia or mental disability). Increased priority was given to people over 60 and people with other illnesses (e.g. diabetes mellitus or stroke) [2]. In addition, close contacts of those in need of care and pregnant women had to be prioritized. The vaccination prioritization was lifted nationwide for all vaccines on June 7, 2021. Studies conducted in Germany in 2021 showed a high acceptance rate among healthcare workers [3] and among older people [4].
29.11.2021
Although more and more people are being vaccinated against Covid-19, the weekly number of new cases remains relatively high worldwide. In addition, several SARS-CoV-2 variants have been described (Gómez et al., 2021), and there is a significant risk of repeated waves of Covid-19 in the coming years. In this context, further research is needed to better understand the epidemiology of Covid-19. In recent months, several studies have examined the prevalence of Covid-19 and the characteristics of people diagnosed with the disease. The proportion of people diagnosed with Covid-19 has been found to vary greatly by setting and country (Elimian et al., 2020; Fan et al., 2020; Guerriero et al., 2021; Haimovich et al., 2020; Lusignan et al., 2020; Mani et al., 2020; Pouwels et al., 2021; Santos-Hövener et al., 2020; Shen et al., 2020; Shepard et al., 2021; Sundaram et al., 2021 ). Although these studies have advanced the field, most of them included participants regardless of their potential symptomatology, so little is known about the specific prevalence of Covid-19 in people with common Covid-19 symptoms (e.g. cough, fatigue, or fever) is known. Regarding the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of people diagnosed with Covid-19, the literature has also provided some contradictory results. For example, one study found that people with diabetes have an increased risk of Covid-19 compared to people without diabetes (Fan et al., 2020), while another study found that this was not the case ( Lusignan et al., 2020). Given these discrepancies, more data are needed on the frequency of Covid-19 diagnosis among individuals with common Covid-19 symptoms, as well as on the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of this population.