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Links for 2021-01-20

  • Association between survival rates in intensive care and the level of ICU occupancy on the day of admission

    Recent preprint paper from the UK —

    Adjusting for patient-level factors, mortality was higher for admissions during periods of high occupancy (>85% occupancy versus the baseline of 45 to 85%) [OR 1.19 (95% posterior credible interval (PCI): 1.00 to 1.44)]. In contrast, mortality was decreased for admissions during periods of low occupancy (<45% relative to the baseline) [OR 0.75 (95% PCI: 0.62 to 0.89)]. [...] The results of this study suggest that survival rates for patients with COVID-19 in intensive care settings appears to deteriorate as the occupancy of (surge capacity) beds compatible with mechanical ventilation (a proxy for operational pressure), increases. Moreover, this risk doesn’t occur above a specific threshold, but rather appears linear; whereby going from 0% occupancy to 100% occupancy increases risk of mortality by 92% [...]
    As Andrew Kunzmann noted – “To aid interpretation, the difference in risk for a 70-year-old man with no comorbidities being admitted during a period of high versus low occupancy is equivalent to the risk if they were approximately a decade older”.

    (tags: risk icu hospitals covid-19 pandemics medicine papers preprints mortality)

  • 6-month consequences of COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a cohort study – The Lancet

    A recent preprint from China — lots of “long COVID” impact, still:

    Fatigue or muscle weakness (63%, 1038 of 1655) and sleep difficulties (26%, 437 of 1655) were the most common symptoms. Anxiety or depression was reported among 23% (367 of 1617) of patients. The proportions of median 6-min walking distance less than the lower limit of the normal range were 24% for those at severity scale 3, 22% for severity scale 4, and 29% for severity scale 5–6.

    (tags: covid-19 long-covid china preprints papers)