In the UK, one of every three coronavirus patients admitted to NHS hospitals die of the disease, while over half of the ones on ventilators do not survive, as a major study reveals.
Out of nearly 17,000 COVID-19 hospitalized Britons, researchers found that 33% have died, 49% were discharged, and 17% are still undergoing their treatment. The study discovered that only a fifth of intubated UK patients survived in the battle with coronavirus, as Mail Online reports.
Moreover, the experts evaluated that 53% of the COVID-19 patients have died while being hooked on a ventilator. Additionally, 27% were still attached to the machines while the study was conducted. The recent study has also found out that out of the ICU patients, 45% lost their lives to the deadly virus. Only 31% were able to continue their recovery at home, and under a quarter are still being treated.
According to the specialists working on the examination, their findings suggest the level of seriousness of coronavirus might be as high as the one of Ebola, which kills about 40% of the people it affects.
The professor in outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, Calum Semple, insists that people need to take the virus seriously. He believes that while COVID-19 infects more people than Ebola, both viruses have similar fatality rates.
The disheartening statistics were stated in a report by ISARIC, the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections.
A team of some of the finest Briton’s infectious disease scientists examined 16,749 admissions between February 6th and April 18th at hospitals in England, Scotland, and Wales.
According to Prof. Semple, many people still believe that COVID-19 is just bad flu. He explains:
“Coronavirus is a very serious disease, the crude hospital case fatality rate is of the same magnitude as Ebola. If you come into hospital with Covid disease and you’re sick enough to be admitted – and you have to be pretty sick these days to be admitted – the crude case fatality rate is sitting somewhere between 35 to 40 percent. That’s the same case crude case fatality rate for someone admitted to hospital with Ebola. People need to hear this and get it their heads.”
Prof. Semple claims that the government is insisting on people to stay home until the outbreak is over exactly because coronavirus is an ‘incredibly dangerous disease’.
Furthermore, the ISARIC study revealed that most of the critically ill patients were aged between 57 and 82. As for the ones who lost in the battle with the virus, the median age is 80. Moreover, one in a hundred COVID-19 patients are under the age of five, while one in 50 sufferers are 18 or younger. Also, men appear to be more vulnerable to the disease than women, with 60% of hospitalized patients being male.
Medics have been stressing that people with underlying health conditions are most likely to contract the virus. However, this study found that nearly half of the coronavirus patients had no reported comorbidities.
As for the symptoms, the most common were coughing, fever, and shortness of breath.
Other symptoms associated with the respiratory system were a sore throat, runny nose, ear pain, wheeze, and chest pain.
The paper was published on the pre-print website MedRxiv. Experts working on the study explained:
“While most patients with COVID-19 experience mild disease, of those who have been admitted to hospital 14 days prior to data extraction, half have been discharged alive and one third have died. Seventeen percent of those admitted to hospital required critical care. Those who have poor outcomes are more often elderly, male, and obese.”
The researchers claim their work is the first European report of a very large and rapidly conducted study of COVID-19.
They insist it demonstrates ‘the vital importance of putting plans in place for the study of epidemic and pandemic threats’. What’s more, the specialists assure that their study represents evidence of the pattern of disease in the UK population.
