Secondly, just 7% of 2,124 intensive care admissions had “very severe comorbidities”. That’s significantly less than typical viral pneumonia patients (as illustrated in table 1)👆
So 19 out of 20 were free of the most severe life-limiting conditions. 4/8
There’s been a bit of an unpleasant and inaccurate narrative over recent days that the majority of COVID-19 deaths were people who were “at death’s door” in any case. That they died “with” rather than “of” the disease. I want to address that. 1/8
In the next week there will be a bulletin on this from one of the team at
@COVID19actuary
but for now some brief thoughts from me.
I’ll refer to yesterday’s update from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC). 2/8
Full report:
The first thing that jumps out from the medical history section of Table 1 is that 93% of those critically ill with COVID-19 were “able to live without assistance in daily activities” prior to developing the disease. That typically suggests reasonable health. 3/8
Lastly, for now, the age distribution. Most critical cases are aged between 50 and 80.
People of this age, without severe comorbidities, could reasonably have expected to have years of life ahead of them before they contracted this disease. 5/8
There‘s a danger of drawing conclusions from ICU admissions that I ought to bring out. Given capacity limits there will inevitably be some triage going on, ie admitting those with the best chance of survival. This will skew the data to some extent. 6/8
Still, this data covers all admissions from the start of the epidemic until 3 April. For much of that period we are told that spare capacity was available so this data should not be skewed too much away from the typical critical case. 7/8
Hopefully this goes some way to addressing the false narrative that these people would have died soon anyway, and we’ll hear rather less of it from journalists and commentators who ought to know better. 8/8
The bulletin I made reference to above has now been published on LinkedIn. When I am able to I will provide another link for people who don’t use that site.
Our eighth bulletin is now available.
Matthew Edwards addresses the question of whether people are dying “with” or “of” COVID-19, concluding that the majority of deaths are people who would not have died anytime soon had the not contracted the disease.
Our urgent
#fundraising
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#intensivecare
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#COVID19
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It’s been a week since THAT thread using Critical Care data (from ICNARC) to challenge the narrative that those getting very seriously ill or dying from COVID-19 were already “at death’s door”.
There’s a new report out (and I’m a glutton for punishment) so let’s dive back in. /1
Another week, another
@ICNARC
report.
When I dug through this report two weeks ago to examine whether COVID-19 patients were really “at death’s door” (see article), I didn’t expect it to become a regular weekend fixture.
They are compelling though, so let’s take a look. /1
The latest
@ICNARC
report is out. Let’s see if I can do a summary which is both jargon-free and typo-free this week (feedback welcome).
I won’t focus on dispelling the “at deaths door” myth this week as lots of great research is now coming out making that point strongly. /1
Latest ICNARC report is out. Here’s my summary and a link to the full report.
I originally used this report to try to dispel the myth that those dying of COVID-19 were already “at death’s door”. I’m pleased to see all the other supporting evidence that‘s emerged since then. /1
Latest
@ICNARC
report was released last night. Here’s a summary on behalf of
@ICS_updates
and
@COVID19actuary
, with thanks to
@NicolaMedical
for holding virtual pen last week.
Update includes 449 new patients (8,699 total); 717 new outcomes (6,860 total).
Full report 👇. /1
Latest
@ICNARC
report on intensive care admissions and outcomes was released last night. Here’s a quick summary on behalf of
@ICS_updates
and
@COVID19actuary
.
Report includes 327 new patients (9,026 total); 587 new outcomes (7,447 total).
Full report is here👇. /1
THREAD
The latest
@ICNARC
report on ICU admissions was published last night, and on behalf of
@ICS_updates
and
@COVID19actuary
, please read this thread for an update
1/
Latest
@ICNARC
report on intensive care admissions and outcomes was released last night. Here’s a very brief summary on behalf of
@ICS_updates
and
@COVID19actuary
.
Report includes 9,623 patients (276 new); 8,533 outcomes.
Full report is here👇. /1
THREAD
This week’s
@ICNARC
report on
#ICU
admissions is reassuring in that there is no sign of an increase in admissions of patients with confirmed
#COVID19
(9777 patients of which 154 are new).
1/
Latest
@ICNARC
report on intensive care admissions and outcomes was released last night.
Report includes 9,949 patients, with outcomes for 9,217 of them.
Most of the breakdowns of admissions and outcomes are stable at this stage, so this week I want to focus on ethnicity. /1