Delta Variant: Partially Sensitive To Vaccination, but Still Worth Global Attention

Delta Variant in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study on Clinical Outcomes Based on Vaccination Status

BACKGROUND

As the global battle against the COVID-19 pandemic endures, the spread of the Delta variant has introduced nuanced challenges, prompting a nuanced examination.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We performed a multilevel logistic regression analysis encompassing 197 patients, comprising 44 vaccinated individuals (V group) and 153 unvaccinated counterparts (UV). These patients, afflicted with the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, were hospitalized between October 2021 and February 2022 at the COVID-19 department of a University Centre in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. We compared patient characteristics, CT lung involvement, Padua score, oxygen saturation (O2 saturation), ventilation requirements, dynamics of arterial blood gas (ABG) parameters, ICU admission rates, and mortality rates between the two groups.

RESULTS

The UV group exhibited a statistically significant (p < 0.05) proclivity toward developing a more severe form of infection, marked by elevated rates of lung involvement, oxygen requirement, ICU admission, and mortality.

CONCLUSION

Our findings underscore the substantial efficacy of the vaccine in diminishing the incidence of severe disease, lowering the rates of ICU admissions, and mitigating mortality among hospitalized patients.

Circular RNA: A promising new star of vaccine

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of single-stranded RNAs with covalently closed structures. Owing to their not having 3' or 5' ends, circRNAs are highly durable and insusceptible to exonuclease-mediated degradation. Moreover, some circRNAs with certain structures are translatable, making them novel vaccines. Vaccines are efficient tools for immunotherapy, such as for the prevention of infectious diseases and cancer treatment. The immune system is activated during immunotherapy to fight against abnormal allies or invaders. CircRNA vaccines represent a potential new avenue in the vaccine era. Recently, several circRNA vaccines have been synthesized and tested in vitro and in vivo. Our review briefly introduces the current understanding of the biology and function of translatable circRNAs, molecular biology, synthetic methods, delivery of circRNA, and current circRNA vaccines. We also discussed the challenges and future directions in the field by summarizing the developments in circRNA vaccines in the past few years.