This blood test may predict which hospitalized COVID-19 patients are at risk for severe illness

Yahoo Life ^ | October 15, 2020 | Rachel Grumman Bender

[Twotone]

Scientists have developed a blood test and new scoring system that may help doctors predict which COVID-19 patients are at risk for severe disease and therefore in need of more intervention, according to a new study published in the journal EBioMedicine. A blood test and scoring system could help doctors predict which COVID-19 patients are at risk for severe disease. (Photo: Getty Images) In the study, scientists performed blood tests on 80 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and then measured the patients’ levels of two different cytokines — IL-6 and IL-10 — which act as messengers for the immune system. The study’s senior author, Gerry McElvaney, a professor of medicine at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Ireland, tells Yahoo Life that IL-6 is a “pro-inflammatory protein,” while IL-10 is an “anti-inflammatory protein” and that both are “known to be altered in COVID-19” patients. “IL-6 is kind of turning on the immune system, while IL-10 is one of our anti-inflammatory cytokines that tries to turn things down,” Dr. Matt Exline, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells Yahoo Life. “As you’re fighting an infection, the body is trying to find an even keel” between the two. “If it’s too turned up, that’s bad,” says Exline, “and if it’s too turned down that’s also bad. I think the concept they identified [in the study] is an important one.”

[PeteB570]

Interesting - but I’m assuming this is for those hospitalized.

So those who have light symptoms and never get tested must be in balance.

[Sacajaweau]

I think we call them guinea pigs.

[Twotone]

To me it sound like a test that could be used for other purposes. I’ve heard of many cases where someone was experiencing issues that their doctors would not take seriously. This would be a good indicator that something is in fact wrong, when other tests turn up negative.

[RJS1950]

Those I know who were “infected” with the virus were never tested, never hospitalized, were told if you don’t have 104 fever don’t come in. Thus, no hospitalization, no treatment, just isolation. Whether or not they had the virus is questionable but they are counted in the scare the public numbers. They don’t want to bring anyone into the hospital unless they are near terminal and might count in the cash for covid sweepstakes. I do know that the bulk of the patients in our local ICUs are not virus patients, they are those who were denied early care for things like cancer and other serious conditions who are now at a critical stage. Mass testing is irrelevant as an indicator of anything. Ask yourself, have they ever tested for seasonal flu?