COVID-19 presented staff with a situation of extreme stress, duress and social emergency, leading to a shared set of experiences which we have characterised as a community of fate.

Obesity was associated with an elevated risk of in-hospital COVID-19 outcomes in all ethnic groups, with associations strongest in black ethnicities.

Interpretation: NSAID use is not associated with higher mortality or increased severity of COVID-19. Policy makers should consider reviewing issued advice around NSAID prescribing and COVID-19 severity.

The fall in hospital mortality in COVID-19 patients during the first wave in the UK was partly accounted for by changes in case mix and illness severity.

Mass roll-out of the first doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA and ChAdOx1 vaccines was associated with substantial reductions in the risk of hospital admission due to COVID-19 in Scotland. There remains the possibility that some of the observed effects might have been due to residual confounding.

Principal component and network analyses demonstrated central roles for IL-6 and GM-CSF in COVID -19 pathogenesis. Comparing these profiles to archived samples from patients with fatal influenza, IL-6 was equally elevated in both conditions whereas GM-CSF was prominent only in COVID-19. These findings further identify the key inflammatory, thrombotic, and vascular factors that characterize and distinguish severe and fatal COVID-19

4C Deterioration model has strong potential for clinical utility and generalisability to predict clinical deterioration and inform decision making among adults hospitalised with COVID-19