Identifying the predictors of Covid-19 infection outcomes and development of prediction models

Ansari, Rashid M.; Baker, Peter

BACKGROUND: The infection of Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) is challenging health problems worldwide. COVID-19 pandemic is spreading all over the world with the number of infected cases increased to 54.4 million with 1.32 million deaths. Different types of statistical models have been developed to predict viral infection and multiple studies have compared the performance of these predictive models, but results were not consistent. This study aimed to develop and provide easy to use model to predict the Covid-19 infection severity in the patients and to help understanding the patient’s condition. METHODS: This study analyzed simulated data obtained from the large database for 340 patients with an active Covid-19 infection. The study identified predictors of Covid-19 outcomes that may be measured in two different ways: the total T-cell levels in the blood with T-cell subsets and number of cells in the blood infected with virus. All measures are relatively unobtrusive as they only require a blood sample, however there is a significant laboratory cost implications for measuring the number of cells infected with virus. This study used methodological approach using two different methods showing how multiple regression and logistic regression can be used in the context of Covid-19 longitudinal data to develop the prediction models. RESULTS: This study has identified the predictors of Covid-19 infection outcomes and developed prediction models. In the regression model of Total_T Cell, the predictors BMI, comorbidity and Total_Tcell were all associated with increased levels of infection severity (p < 0.001). For BMI, the mean % of unhealthy cells increased by 0.42 (95% CI 0.24 to 0.60) and comorbidity predictor has on average 8.3% more unhealthy liver cells than without comorbidity (95% CI – 2.9% - 1.29%). The results of multivariate logistic regression model predicting the Covid-19 Infection severity were promising. The significant predictors were observed such as Age (OR 0.95, p = 0.02, 95% CI: 0.91 – 0.99), Helper T_cells (OR O.93, p = 0.03, 95% CI: 0.87 – 0.99), Basic_Tcell (OR 1.11, p = 0.001, 95% CI: 1.06 -1.71) and Comorbidity (OR 0.41, p = 0.05, 95% CI: 0.16 – 1.07). CONCLUSIONS: In this study recommendation has been provided to clinical researchers on the best way to use the various Covid-19 infections measures along with identifying other possible predictors of Covid-19 infection. It is imperative to monitor closely the T-cell subsets using prediction models that might provide valuable information about the patient’s condition during the treatment process.