Materials and Methods

The study included patients who presented to the emergency department of Atatürk University and the Erzurum City Hospital with symptoms such as recent-onset fever, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, and sudden attenuation of taste and smell, and had returned from travel abroad or had contact with a suspected COVID-19 patient within the past 14 days. Before initiating this prospective observational study, ethics committee approval was obtained from the Erzurum Regional Education Research Hospital (BEAH KAEK 2019/10-104).
For patients with risk factors for COVID-19, posterior-anterior chest X-rays were obtained and if suspicious lesions were detected, a more detailed examination was performed using high-resolution thoracic computed tomography. COVID-19 diagnosis was made based on real-time PCR testing of nasopharyngeal swab samples obtained from the patients. The first SARS-CoV-2-positive patients presented to Erzurum City Hospital and Atatürk University on March 20 and 24, respectively. This study included 88 COVID-19 patients treated in the pulmonology and infectious diseases departments of these centers between March 24 and April 15 and a control group of 20 asymptomatic healthcare workers who had negative real-time PCR results during routine COVID-19 screening in our hospital and volunteered to participate. The patients’ hematological parameters, biochemical parameters including liver and kidney function tests, coagulation parameters, ferritin, D-dimer, troponin-I, CRP, and arterial blood gas parameters were evaluated at admission and daily thereafter.