Introduction
Ever since the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pneumonia emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, it has rapidly spread throughout the world, resulting in high mortality. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) reports, about 80% of patients with COVID-19 infection have mild symptoms, whereas about 5% have severe symptoms. The latter group of patients shows more than 50% mortality. On 11th March 2020, WHO assessed that the COVID-19 infection could be characterised as a pandemic1. However, there is insufficient knowledge on the pathophysiological parameters, particularly mortality indicators, to understand the mechanism involved in the COVID-19 infection. Clinical and pathological features of patients with COVID-19 have recently been reported, showing that the COVID-19 infection causes clusters of severe and even fatal pneumonia with a clinical presentation that greatly resembled that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV infection. COVID-19 is also associated with admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), and high mortality2,3. Several potential drug candidates, including lopinavir/ritonavir, nucleoside analogues, neuraminidase inhibitors, remdesivir, chloroquine, and Chinese traditional medicines (such as Lianhua Qing-wen capsules), have been proposed4,5. No vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for the COVID-19 infection has been shown to be effective yet; hence, supportive therapy that provides symptomatic relief and protects the multi-organ functions may be beneficial. Identifying or treating high risk patients more promptly is crucial for decreasing the mortality rate. However, lack of clinical data of critically ill patients with COVID-19 promotes this study in Tongji Hospital where was urgently reconstructed and assigned by the Chinese government as a hospital designated for severely or critically ill COVID-19 patients.
In this study, we performed a comprehensive analysis and aimed to summarise the severe clinical manifestations of patients with COVID-19 infection. Therefore, this study helped in gaining a better understanding of the risk factors and outcomes of the COVID-19 infection, ultimately helping in guiding the efforts aimed at reducing the fatality rate.