Statistics
Statistical analysis was performed in GraphPad Prism 8 using non parametric tests. Statistical significance of differences between groups were assessed using Mann-Whitney U-test. Spearman’s rank-order correlation was used to analyse the association between participant attributes that had detectable values in our assays. Kaplan–Meier curves were compared using Log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test. Statistical significance was accepted at p<0.05.
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests including those of any financial nature.
Author Contribution: Sample processing, performing experiments, data analysis and figure generation (Amit Kumar Singh, Nandini Kasarpalkar, Shilpa Bhowmick). Participant recruitment, sample processing and data analysis (Gaurav Paradkar, Mayur Talreja). Sample processing (Abhishek Tiwari, Harsha Palav, Snehal Kaginkar). Participant recruitment (Rajiv Kulkarni, Karan Shah). Sample collection (Ashwini Patil, Varsha Kalsurkar). Performed experiments and Data analysis (Sachee Agrawal, Jayanthi Shastri). Scholarly advice (Rajesh Dere, Ramesh Bharmal, Smita Mahale). Conceived study, analysed data, compiled results and wrote manuscript (Vikrant Bhor and Vainav Patel). All authors revised the manuscript and gave final approval for publication.
Acknowledgement: We are extremely grateful to Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Ministry for Health & Family Welfare, Government of India for encouraging and supporting with resources, the pursuit of important research questions relevant to COVID-19 pathogenesis. We would also like to thank Dr. Noora Pathan, Dr. Mahesh Chaurasia, Dr. Rasika Satpute and Dr. Dharmesh Balsarkar for facilitating recruitment of study participants and Mr. Omkar Arekar for the assistance provided in data entry. Also, none of this work would have been possible without the active participation and support of participants to whom we are grateful.
Funding: Funding was through Institutional intramural core support from ICMR-NIRRH.
Ethical Approval: Institutional Ethical Committee approval from ICMR-NIRRH and T N medical college, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) was received for the study and informed consent of all participating subjects was obtained.
Data Sharing: Raw/Source data are available on request but are not shared here due to privacy/ethical concerns. Sharing of this data will also be subject to local ethics approval if applicable.