This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed
Annemarie B Docherty, Ewen M Harrison, Christopher A Green, Hayley E Hardwick, Riinu Pius, Lisa Norman, Karl A Holden, Jonathan M Read, Frank Dondelinger, Gail Carson, Laura Merson, James Lee, Daniel Plotkin, Louise Sigfrid, Sophie Halpin, Clare Jackson, Carrol Gamble, Peter W Horby, Jonathan S Nguyen-Van-Tam, Jake Dunning, Peter JM Openshaw, J Kenneth Baillie, Malcolm Gracie Semple
Posted April 28, 2020.
Note
To characterize the clinical features of patients with severe COVID-19 in the UK.
Design: Prospective observational cohort study with rapid data gathering and near real-time analysis, using a pre-approved questionnaire adopted by the WHO. 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 [IQR 57, 82; range 0, 104], the median duration of symptoms before admission was 4 days [IQR 1,8] and the median duration of hospital stay was 7 days [IQR 4,12]. The commonest comorbidities were chronic cardiac disease (29%), uncomplicated diabetes (19%), non-asthmatic chronic pulmonary disease (19%) and 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.
Reference
medRxiv – DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.23.20076042