Absolute eosinophil count in coronavirus disease 2019 patients: A cross-sectional study in a tertiary care institution of India

[...]a cost-effective test is required for early suspicion of COVID-19 cases and triage of patients. In addition to that, preclinical studies (mainly in mice) have shown that eosinophils are armed with a collection of molecular mechanisms that enable them to recognize, respond, and conduct antiviral responses mainly against respiratory viruses.1[2] This novel coronavirus uses angiotensinconverting enzyme-2 (ACE2) as its cellular receptor, and interestingly, it has been demonstrated by Jackson et al. that allergic reaction was inversely related to ACE2 expression, such as allergen challenge reduced ACE2 expression. [...]with this background of contradictory findings by the previous studies, this study is being conducted to find out eosinophil count in hospitalized COVID-19 patients along with its role to predict severity so that this routine and cost-effective parameter can be utilized for prompt management of severe cases. materials and methods This is a hospital-based cross-sectional study conducted with approval of the Institutional Ethics Committee (Reference No. - [...]even though no statistically significant association was found in the eosinophil counts among the moderate and severe categories of COVID-19 patients, eosinopenia was found to be a consistent finding in most of the patients.