Tuesday 21st April 2020
COVID Figures for 20th April
UK Hospital Deaths 449 / Total 16,509
James Cook Hospital – Total deaths – 141
I thought I’d share the latest report from the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) today. Their reports deal with COVID patients that have been admitted to Critical Care Units throughout the UK since the pandemic began.
This is their third report, and deals with 6664 COVID patients admitted to Critical Care Units up until 17th April 2020. Of these, they have complete data on 5578 patients. The outcome of 2936 is known, the other 2642 remain within ICU, still being treated.
London tops the chart with approximately one-third of all UK Critical Care admissions. Birmingham and the Black Country have seen 7% of all admissions. The areas surrounding London are the next busiest whilst the North of England Network (the area north of Leeds) has seen approximately 5% of the share, placing us alongside Greater Manchester and the Thames Valley area.
The report shows that the median age of those admitted is 60 years. 72% of them are men. They had been in hospital for an average of 2-3 days before worsening to the point where they needed Critical Care.
74% of people admitted were overweight. To put this in perspective 62% of the general population is normally overweight. 7.3% of all patients admitted to Critical Care had what can be described as ‘very severe’ underlying illnesses.
Of the 2936 patients whose outcome is known, 51% have died and 49% have survived to leave ICU alive. The survivors have been treated for an average of 9 days. Of these 2936 patients, 65% of them required a ventilator.
This 51% mortality figure remains biased toward patients who have either died or who have recovered after relatively short stays on ICU. There are many patients who are still on a ventilator after 2-3 weeks who will go on to survive. With time, this figure will begin to include these patients.
Of the 2936 patients whose outcome is known, 78% of under 40’s have survived, 73% of those in their 40’s, 58% of those in their 50’s, 42% of those in their 60’s, 31% of those in their 70’s and 33% of those in their 80’s.
Of all patients who avoided being ventilated and were given high-flow oxygen or CPAP, 80% survived. Of all the ventilated patients, 33% survived.
A rather depressing figure is that 80% of all Critical Care patients who needed dialysis have died. This is not surprising. We know that as a group, the patients who develop kidney failure in the ICU often do not survive.
Apologies for what might initially appear to be data overload but this is extremely useful information, allowing us to make more accurate predictions of which patients will do well and which won’t.