In the first ten days after recovering from COVID, people have an increased risk of going back to the hospital bed or even dying.
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Researchers from the University of Michigan in the United States found that patients with COVID-19 are 40-60% more likely to end up in the hospital again or die in the first 10 days compared to other patients who were treated in the same hospitals for pneumonia and heart failure. The results of the corresponding study on Monday, December 14, were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Scientists checked the frequent information that in the first months after discharge from the hospital, patients with COVID-19 face a high risk of concomitant complications, readmission to hospital, and even death.
For 60 days after discharge, they monitored 2,200 patients treated at 132 VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System hospitals this spring and summer. A similar follow-up was carried out for 1,800 patients after non-COVID-19 pneumonia and 3,500 discharged in the same period after treatment for heart failure.
By the end of the observation period, the overall risk of re-hospitalization or death for COVID-19 patients was lower than for the other two diseases. However, in the first two months, 9% of COVID-19 patients who survived hospitalizations died and nearly 20 returned to hospitals.
The most common reasons for readmission were: relapse of coronavirus infection in 30% of patients and sepsis in 8.5%. More than 22% of those readmitted to the hospital ended up in intensive care.
Researchers believe that for many patients, the coronavirus triggers cascades of problems that are no less serious than those we see in other diseases, and that seems to last for weeks or even months.
It is also noted that now, when the situation is more difficult than in the spring and summer, and hospitals, due to overload, are trying to quickly empty beds, patients need to be especially vigilant in the first two weeks after discharge.
Earlier it was reported that more than 300 thousand people died of COVID-19 in the United States. Globally, the number of victims of the coronavirus exceeds 1 million 619 thousand.
