Fewer COVID-19 patients are dying in intensive-care units, researchers have found, indicating that hospitals are getting better at treating severe forms of the pandemic disease.
Overall mortality of COVID-19 patients treated in ICUs had fallen to just under 42 percent at the end of May from almost 60 percent in March. That’s according to the first systematic analysis of two dozen studies involving more than 10,000 patients in Asia, Europe and North America.
The fast spread of the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus, as well as the high caseload and proportion of patients requiring breathing support, placed "unprecedented demand” on ICU services, researchers wrote in a study published Wednesday in the journal Anaesthesia. Countries in later phases of the pandemic may now be coping better, they said.
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