Statistical analysis:
Continuous data was expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD) while
categorical data was represented as proportions. The normality of
distribution was assessed using the using Shapiro-Wilk test. Comparison
of means of continuous variables was done using Student’s t-test or
Mann-Whitney U test as appropriate while Fisher exact test or χ2 test
was used for categorical variables. In addition, ANOVA or Kruskal Wallis
was used to compare mean values of continuous variables between the
three groups based on severity of COVID-19. A two-sided P value of
< 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. SPSS
version 24.0 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY) and GraphPad Prism version 8.0.0
(GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA) software were used for statistical
analysis.