How Long do Covid-19 Patients Get Hospitalized?

The duration of Covid-19 hospitalization is longer than average.

This article is from a study of 420 Covid-19 patients hospitalized at  Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital in Shenzhen China, from January 11 to March 10, 2020.

The 3 classes of Covid-19 based on symptoms

Among the 420 patients, 23 or 5.5% were clinically mild. 394 or  93.8% were moderate, and only 3 patients were clinically severe during the initial evaluation.

Of the 417 mild or moderate at the time of initial assessment,  21.6% progressed to the severe stage within 14 days of symptom onset.

Covid-19 Hospital Stays

Covid-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms who did not require admission to the Intensive Care Unit or ICU stayed in the hospital for 21.3 days.

Severe COVID-19 cases are the ones who develop Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrom or ARDS. It takes about 9.5 to 11 days from the initial symptoms to the development of ARDS.

COVID-19 patients who were admitted to the ICU needed a total of 52.1 days of admission. 34.4 of those days were spent inside the ICU. While in the ICU, the patients were on a mechanical ventilator for about 28.5 days.

Acute Respiratory Syndrome or ARDS

ARDS is a lung condition where excess fluid accumulates in the lungs. The fluid accumulation uses up the air spaces where oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange should happen. The oxygen levels drop to dangerously low levels. Patients are given oxygen and positioned in their stomach to remove the fluid by gravity.

If the oxygen levels are not enough, and the patients are having trouble breathing, then intubation and mechanical ventilation are started.

What is the Difference between the Shenzhen experience to other hospitals in the world?

The Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital was not swamped with COVID-19 cases. The doctors did not have to allocate ventilators to particular patients or shorten the duration of ventilator use in some patients. There was also no mention of deaths secondary to the patient’s family requesting a “Do Not Resuscitate” order during the hospitalization.

The treatment of COVID-19 was free of charge, and admission for all cases was
mandatory in Shenzhen. Therefore the hospital length of stay may be longer compared to other countries where finances are a significant factor in hospital stays.

What is Similar between Shenzhen and the rest of the world?

The clinical progression of cases in Shenzhen was similar to the instances in Wuhan, China, with a mean time to ICU admission and mean time to develop acute respiratory distress syndrome to be around 10 days.

The patients who have a worse outcome are the same. The hypertensives, diabetics, male sex, and age more than 60 have higher mortality rates.

At present, there has not been a significant change from the way Covid-19 is being treated. There is no definitive drug available, although many clinical trials are underway.

The knowledge about Covid-19 is rapidly evolving. Information may update as new researches are done. Stay current by subscribing.

Don’t Get Sick!

Reference:

Characterization of clinical progression of COVID-19 patients in Shenzhen, China
Qifang Bi, Chengcheng Hong, Juan Meng, Zhenke Wu, Pengzheng Zhou, Chenfei Ye, Binbin Sun, Lauren M Kucirka, Andrew S Azman, Tong Wang, Jiancong Chen, Zhaoqin Wang, Lei Liu, Justin Lessler, Jessie K Edwards, Ting Ma, Guoliang Zhang
medRxiv 2020.04.22.20076190; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.22.20076190

The reference article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

Image Credit: By Rcp.basheer – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16721005

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