If you’re sick enough with COVID-19 to be admitted to a hospital intensive care unit, your chances of survival are much better today than they were a few months ago, researchers in the journal report. Anesthesia. The British study looked at all published research from around the world on ICU deaths of COVID-19 among adults, and found that the death rate dropped from 60 percent of ICU patients in late March to 40 percent. in May, a 33 percent drop. The ICU mortality rate was more or less constant on all continents.
“As we learn more about this virus and its effect on critically ill patients, we improve treatment and its complications,” Dr. Eric Cioe Pena, director of global health at Northwell Health, told ABC News. “The lump sum of knowledge that is applied to this problem is what has helped reduce mortality.” Doctors now have more effective tools, including proven steroids and antiviral medications, and have a better understanding of the new coronavirus and how it affects the body. Also, “we have more knowledge about ventilator management in these patients,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Safety.
While the ICU death rate has fallen across national borders, different countries have employed divergent strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, and deaths overall are on the rise in countries that have failed to contain the disease. The virus is “like a huge giant forest fire that seeks human lives to burn,” says Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Minnesota. Political. If the gains from treatment are not “combined with good public health measures,” Peña told ABC News, “we will erase any gains made in recent months by simply overwhelming ICUs that have improved in COVID-19 treatment.”
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