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The COVID-19 pandemic proceeds in waves, with variable characteristics of the clinical picture resulting from the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This study aimed to compare the epidemiological characteristics, symptomatology, and outcomes of the disease in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 during periods of different variants dominance. Comparing the periods of dominance of variants preceding the Delta variant, the Delta period was characterized by a higher share of hospitalized females, less frequent comorbidities among patients, and a different age distribution. The lowest need for oxygen therapy and mechanical ventilation was observed under Omicron dominance. The triad of classic COVID-19 symptoms, cough, fever, dyspnoea, and fatigue, were most prevalent during the Delta period, and significantly less common under the Omicron dominance. During the Omicron period, nearly twice as many patients as in the previous periods could be discharged from the hospital within 7 days; the overall 28-day mortality was significantly lower compared to that of the Delta period. It also did not differ between periods that were dominated by the BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants. The study indicates that the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant that dominated between January and June 2022 caused a disease which resembled the common cold, and was caused by seasonal alpha and beta-coronaviruses with a low pathogenicity for humans. However, one should note that this effect may not only have been related to biological features of the Omicron lineage, but may additionally have been driven by the increased levels of immunization through natural infections and vaccinations, for which we could not account for due to a lack of sufficient data.

Background and Objectives: Patients living with HIV (PLWH), especially those diagnosed too late or not receiving treatment with antiretroviral drugs in the stage of advanced immunodeficiency AIDS for various reasons, develop additional opportunistic infections or AIDS-defining diseases that may contribute directly to the death of these patients. Material and Methods: In this work, we focused on disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) by retrospectively analyzing the symptoms, clinical and autopsy diagnoses of patients diagnosed with HIV infection who died in the provincial specialist hospital in the Lower Silesia region in Poland. Results: The autopsy was performed in 27.4% cases. The cause of death was determined to be HIV-related/AIDS-associated in 78% patients. The most common AIDS-defining CNS diseases in our cohort were toxoplasmosis and cryptococcosis. Conslusions: The presented results of the most common causes of changes in the central nervous system among deceased HIV-infected patients are comparable to the results of studies by other scientists cited in the publication.