Abstract
Background:There is potentially considerable variation in the nature and duration of the care provided to hospitalised patients during an infectious disease epidemic or pandemic. Improvements in care and clinician confidence may shorten the time spent as an inpatient, or the need for admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) or high dependency unit (HDU). On the other hand, limited resources at times of high demand may lead to rationing. Nevertheless, these variables may be used as static proxies for disease severity, as outcome measures for trials, and to inform planning and logistics.
Methods: We investigate these time trends in an extremely large international cohort of 142,540 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. Investigated are: time from symptom onset to hospital admission, probability of ICU/HDU admission, time from hospital admission to ICU/HDU admission, hospital case fatality ratio (hCFR) and total length of hospital stay.
Results: Time from onset to admission showed a rapid decline during the first months of the pandemic followed by peaks during August/September and December 2020. ICU/HDU admission was more frequent from June to August. The hCFR was lowest from June to August. Raw numbers for overall hospital stay showed little variation, but there is clear decline in time to discharge for ICU/HDU survivors.
Conclusions: Our results establish that variables of these kinds have limitations when used as outcome measures in a rapidly evolving situation.
Funding: This work was supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Wellcome [215091/Z/18/Z] and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [OPP1209135]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Methods: We investigate these time trends in an extremely large international cohort of 142,540 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. Investigated are: time from symptom onset to hospital admission, probability of ICU/HDU admission, time from hospital admission to ICU/HDU admission, hospital case fatality ratio (hCFR) and total length of hospital stay.
Results: Time from onset to admission showed a rapid decline during the first months of the pandemic followed by peaks during August/September and December 2020. ICU/HDU admission was more frequent from June to August. The hCFR was lowest from June to August. Raw numbers for overall hospital stay showed little variation, but there is clear decline in time to discharge for ICU/HDU survivors.
Conclusions: Our results establish that variables of these kinds have limitations when used as outcome measures in a rapidly evolving situation.
Funding: This work was supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Wellcome [215091/Z/18/Z] and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [OPP1209135]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e70970 |
| Number of pages | 30 |
| Journal | eLife |
| Volume | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 23 Nov 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Acknowledgments:This work was supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Wellcome [215091/Z/18/Z] and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [OPP1209135]; CIHR Coronavirus Rapid Research Funding Opportunity OV2170359; Grants from Rapid European COVID-19 Emergency Response research (RECOVER) [H2020 project 101003589] and European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases (ECRAID) [965,313]; The Imperial NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; The Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; and Endorsed by the Irish Critical Care- Clinical Trials Group, co-ordinated in Ireland by the Irish Critical Care- Clinical Trials Network at University College Dublin and funded by the Health Research Board of Ireland [CTN-2014–12]. This work uses Data / Material provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support #DataSavesLives. The Data / Material used for this research were obtained from ISARIC4C. The COVID-19 Clinical Information Network (CO-CIN) data was collated by ISARIC4C Investigators. Data and Material provision was supported by grants from: the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR; award CO-CIN-01), the Medical Research Council (MRC; grant MC_PC_19059), and by the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections at University of Liverpool in partnership with Public Health England (PHE), (award 200907), Wellcome Trust [Turtle, Lance-fellowship 205228/Z/16/Z], NIHR HPRU in Respiratory Infections at Imperial College London with PHE (award 200927), Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (grant C18616/A25153), NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Imperial College London (award IS-BRC-1215–20013), and NIHR Clinical Research Network providing infrastructure support. This work was possible due to the dedication and hard work of the Norwegian SARS-CoV-2 study team, and supported by grants from Research Council of Norway grant no 312780, and a philanthropic donation from Vivaldi Invest A/S owned by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner; The dedication and hard work of the Groote Schuur Hospital Covid ICU Team, and supported by the Groote Schuur nursing and University of Cape Town registrar bodies coordinated by the Division of Critical Care at the University of Cape Town; and supported by the COVID clinical management team, AIIMS, Rishikesh, India. Matthew Hall and Christophe Fraser were supported by a Li Ka Shing Foundation award to Christophe Fraser.