Dynamics of COVID-19 and demographic characteristics as predisposing risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection: a hospital-based, one-center retrospective study

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is the most devastating health crisis our generation has seen. The present study tries to gather more epidemiological data and improve the knowledge of the demographic factors responsible for a higher incidence of COVID-19. We analyzed the real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results obtained in one of the biggest tertiary hospitals in Bulgaria during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020–April 2021). For this period, almost 40% of all tested samples of hospitalized patients and health care workers in University Hospital “St. Marina,” Varna, were SARS-CoV-2 positive. The most affected individuals were 60–79-year-old people. Male sex is a significant risk factor only for the active ages (20–59 years), while both men and women of advanced age have the same risk to be infected with SARS-CoV-2. Interestingly, girls under 19 years were more susceptible to the infection than boys in the same age group.

Keywords:

• Coronavirus
• real time polymerase chain reaction
• epidemiology
• pandemic
• risk factors

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to restrictions, e.g. their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.