Evaluation of Symptoms and Viral Load in the Population of the Institute of Biology of the Federal Fluminense University During the COVID-19 pandemic

The SARS-CoV-2 infection is highly transmissible, pathogenic and has such as main detection technique the quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Since its discovery in 2019, countless questions about parameters that could favor SARS-CoV-2 infection were raised. Therefore, we analyzed in this study nasopharyngeal swabs of part of the population floating at the Institute of Biology of the University Federal Fluminense, Niteroi, Brazil, between August and September 2021 correlating the data to age, race, gender, demographic distribution and comorbidities pre/post SARS-CoV-2 infection. We showed that individuals with high number of viral copies are more susceptible to developing headache, runny nose, sneezing, fever, pain when swallowing and cough. Additionally, systemic arterial hypertension was not a comorbidity associated to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Regarding age, individuals aged 60 or over presented higher number of positive cases and according with self-declared data about gender, race and demographic distribution, female white and brown residents in northern region of Niteroi are more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Thus, we conclude that population more vulnerable aged 60 or over and female gender are more susceptible the SARS-CoV-2 infection.