Did bacterial pneumonia kill most persons with advanced COVID infection/disease? Seems YES, Bacterial infections may even exceed death rates from viral infection itself; evidence of no cytokine storm?
by Paul Alexander
study shows importance of preventing & aggressively treating secondary bacterial pneumonia in critical ill patients with severe pneumonia; ventilators KILLED most via ventilator associated pneumonia
SOURCE:
SOURCE:
https://www.jci.org/articles/view/170682
‘METHODS. We performed a single-center prospective cohort study of 585 mechanically ventilated patients with severe pneumonia and respiratory failure, 190 of whom had COVID-19, who underwent at least one bronchoalveolar lavage. A panel of ICU physicians adjudicated pneumonia episodes and endpoints based on clinical and microbiologic data. Given the relatively long ICU length of stay among patients with COVID-19, we developed a machine learning approach called CarpeDiem, which groups similar ICU patient-days into clinical states based on electronic health record data.
RESULTS.CarpeDiem revealed that the long ICU length of stay among patients with COVID-19 is attributable to long stays in clinical states characterized primarily by respiratory failure. While VAP was not associated with mortality overall, mortality was higher in patients with one episode of unsuccessfully treated VAP compared with successfully treated VAP (76.4% versus 17.6%, P < 0.001). In all patients, including those with COVID-19, CarpeDiem demonstrated that unresolving VAP was associated with transitions to clinical states associated with higher mortality.
CONCLUSIONS. Unsuccessful treatment of VAP is associated with greater mortality. The relatively long length of stay among patients with COVID-19 is primarily due to prolonged respiratory failure, placing them at higher risk of VAP.’
