Objective: To characterize the clinical features of patients with severe COVID-19 in the UK.
Setting: 166 UK hospitals between 6th February and 18th April 2020. Participants:
16,749 people with COVID-19.
Interventions: No interventions were performed, but with consent, samples were taken for research purposes. Many participants were co-enrolled in other interventional studies and clinical trials
Results:
The median age was 72 years
the median duration of symptoms before admission was 4 days
and the median duration of hospital stay was 7 days
The commonest comorbidities were
chronic cardiac disease (29%),
uncomplicated diabetes (19%),
non-asthmatic chronic pulmonary disease (19%)
asthma (14%);
47% had no documented reported comorbidity.
Increased age and comorbidities including obesity were associated with a higher probability of mortality.
Distinct clusters of symptoms were found:
1. respiratory (cough, sputum, sore throat, runny nose, ear pain, wheeze, and chest pain);
2. systemic (myalgia, joint pain and fatigue);
3. enteric (abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhoea).
Overall,
49% of patients were discharged alive,
33% have died and
17% continued to receive care at date of reporting.
17% required admission to High Dependency or Intensive Care Units; of these,
31% were discharged alive,
45% died and
24% continued to receive care at the reporting date.
Of those receiving mechanical ventilation,
20% were discharged alive,
53% died and
27% remained in hospital.
Conclusions: We present the largest detailed description of COVID-19 in Europe, demonstrating the importance of pandemic preparedness and the need to maintain readiness to launch research studies in response to outbreaks
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.23.20076042v1