An article last week (“Shock new figures on intensive care deaths”, page 1) said the mortality rate for patients admitted to ICU with Covid-19 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was “running at close to 50%”. Calculations of case fatality rates are complex while an outbreak is ongoing and, although one method can be to divide the number of deaths by the number of deaths plus recovered patients (ie to look only at those patients for whom an outcome is known), its reliability depends on the extent to which the outcome for patients still in treatment can be assumed to be similar. The Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre report on which the article’s calculations were based is early in the Covid-19 outbreak. As such, given the small sample of 165 patients, which could be biased towards the most and least severe cases, it was too soon to suggest the outcome may be indicative for all those admitted to critical care.
An article said that Singapore “requires citizens to download an app that allows the authorities to learn of their contacts”. Downloading the app is not compulsory but the government is encouraging its citizens to do so (“We must take drastic action but let’s not turn into a nation of tyrants”, 29 March, page 46).
Other recently amended articles include:
Coronavirus outliers: four nations with very different approaches to the crisis
As the rest of Europe lives under lockdown, Sweden keeps calm and carries on
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