Characteristics, Treatment, and Outcomes of Patients With Severe or Life-threatening COVID-19 at a Military Treatment Facility-A Descriptive Cohort Study.

Introduction: The treatment of severe and life-threatening COVID-19 is a rapidly evolving practice. The purpose of our study was to describe the characteristics and outcomes of patients with severe or life-threatening COVID-19 who present to a Military Treatment Facility (MTF) with an emphasis on addressing institutional adaptations to rapidly changing medical evidence.

Materials And Methods: A single-center retrospective study conducted on a prospectively maintained cohort.

Influenza virus subpopulations: exchange of lethal H5N1 virus NS for H1N1 virus NS triggers de novo generation of defective-interfering particles and enhances interferon-inducing particle efficiency.

Reassortment of influenza A viruses is known to affect viability, replication efficiency, antigenicity, host range, and virulence, and can generate pandemic strains. In this study, we demonstrated that the specific exchange of the NS gene segment from highly pathogenic A/HK/156/97 (H5N1) [E92 or E92D NS1] virus for the cognate NS gene segment of A/PR/834(H1N1) [D92 NS1] virus did not cause a significant change in the sizes of infectious particle subpopulations. However, it resulted in 2 new phenotypic changes: (1) de novo generation of large subpopulations of defective-interfering particles (DIPs); and (2) enhancement of interferon (IFN)-inducing particle efficiency leading to an order of magnitude or higher quantum (peak) yield of IFN in both avian and mammalian cells.