Abstract: biomedicines Article Characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in an Actively Monitored Cohort of Patients with Lupus Nephritis Bogdan Obris, că 1,2, *,† , Alexandra Vornicu 1,2,† , Roxana Jurubit, ă 1 , Valentin Mocanu 1 , George Dimofte 1 , Andreea Andronesi 1,2 , Bogdan Sorohan 1,2 , Camelia Achim 1,2 , Georgia Micu 1 , Raluca Bobeică 1 , Constantin Dina 3,† and Gener Ismail 1,2,† 1 2 3 * † Citation: Obris, că, B.; Vornicu, A.; Jurubit, ă, R.; Mocanu, V.; Dimofte, G.; Andronesi, A.; Sorohan, B.; Achim, C.; Micu, G.; Bobeică, R.; et al. Characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in an Actively Monitored Cohort of Patients with Lupus Nephritis. Biomedicines 2022, 10, 2423. https://doi.org/10.3390/ biomedicines10102423 Academic Editor: Cristina Capusa Department of Nephrology, Fundeni Clinical Institute, 022328 Bucharest, Romania Department of Nephrology, “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 020021 Bucharest, Romania Department of Anatomy, Ovidius University, 900470 Constant, a, Romania Correspondence: bogdan.obrisca@drd.umfcd.ro These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: (1) Background: We sought to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in patients with lupus nephritis (LN); (2) Methods: A total of 95 patients with LN actively monitored in our department between 26 February 2020, when the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in Romania, and 1 May 2021, were included in the study. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the independent risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection; (3) Results: A total of 15 patients (15.8%) had a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection during a total follow-up time of 105.9 patient-years (unadjusted incidence rate: 14.28 SARS-CoV-2 infections per 100 patient-years). Median time to SARS-CoV-2 infection was 9.3 months (IQR: 7.2–11.3). The majority of patients had a mild form of SARS-CoV-2 infection (73.3%), while the remaining had moderate forms. None of the patients had a severe infection or a SARS-CoV-2-related death. The most frequent symptom was fatigue (73.3%), followed by loss of taste/smell (53.3%) and fever (46.7%). Forty percent of those with SARSCoV-2 infection were hospitalized for a median 11.5 days (IQR:3.75–14). In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, a current oral corticosteroid dose ≥ 15 mg/day was associated with a 7.69-fold higher risk (OR, 7.69; 95%, 1.3–45.46), while the use of hydroxychloroquine was associated with a 91% lower risk for a SARS-CoV-2 infection (OR, 0.09; 95%CI, 0.01–0.59). (4) Conclusions: Our study confirms that the SARS-CoV-2 infection-associated morbidity might only be moderately increased in patients with LN. The current oral corticosteroid dose was the only independent predictor of infection occurrence, while use of hydroxychloroquine was associated with a protective effect. Keywords: lupus nephritis; SARS-CoV-2 infection; corticosteroids; hydroxychloroquine Received: 27 August 2022 Accepted: 24 September 2022 Published: 28 September 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).