Most patients put on ventilators in New York died

New York: Researchers have found that nearly all coronavirus (COVID-19) hospitalised patients placed on mechanical ventilators in New York's largest health system have died.

For the findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers examined the electronic health records of 5,700 patients hospitalised at Northwell Health, New York State's largest health system. Final outcomes were known for 2,634 patients.

They found that about 20 per cent of COVID-19 patients treated at Northwell Health died, and 88 per cent of those placed on ventilators lost their lives. "To our knowledge, this study represents the first large case series of sequentially hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 in the US," study authors.

This report describes the demographics, baseline comorbidities, presenting clinical tests, and outcomes of the first sequentially hospitalised patients with COVID-19 from an academic health care system in New York. In the study, the research team revealed that the most common comorbidities were hypertension (56.6 per cent), obesity (41.7 per cent), and diabetes (33.8 per cent).