{"id":6044,"date":"2023-08-22T15:15:49","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T15:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=6044"},"modified":"2023-08-22T15:15:49","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T15:15:49","slug":"how-do-covid-19-symptoms-progress-and-what-causes-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=6044","title":{"rendered":"How do COVID-19 symptoms progress and what causes death?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Medically reviewed by Melisa Puckey, BPharm<\/a>. Last updated on March 28, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the signs, symptoms and stages of COVID-19, and what causes death in COVID-19? How long do you spend in the ICU with COVID-19? How long do you have COVID-19 before you die?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the stages and symptoms of COVID-19? Day 1: The symptoms usually start with a fever, a dry cough and mild breathing issues which may get worse over the next week. You also may have symptoms of a sore throat, coughing up mucus, diarrhea, nausea, body aches and joint pain. Day 7: Breathing may become difficult or laboured. This is called dyspnoea. Day 9: Sepsis may start, this is the body’s extreme response to an infection that can lead to organ failure or injury. Day 10-12: People who have mild COVID-19 start to have an improvement in their fever and cough, but in serious cases their fever and cough continues. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) starts to be diagnosed, this is a respiratory problem when there is widespread inflammation in the lungs. Day 12: This is the median day to be admitted into the intensive care unit (ICU). Day 15: Acute kidney and cardiac injury becomes evident. Day 18.5: The median time it takes from the first symptoms of COVID-19 to death is 18.5 days. Day 22: This is the median amount of days it takes for COVID-19 survivors to be released from hospital A study published in The Lancet studied the patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19 and compared details of the patients who passed away and patients that survived. This figure below shows the progression and duration of the major symptoms of COVID-19 in survivors and non-survivors for hospitalized patients in the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"progression<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Facts and figures of patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Figures from the above study show:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • 191 people hospitalized with COVID 19<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 28% (54) patients died from COVID-19<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 72% (137) patients survived COVID-19<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 26% (50) of patients went into intensive care unit (ICU)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 78% (39) patients who went into ICU passed away<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 22% (11) patients who went to ICU survived<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 8 days was the median length of stay in ICU<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 11 days was the median total length of stay in hospital<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 22 days was the time from first symptom until discharge from hospital for survivors<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 18.5 days from first symptoms until death for non-survivors<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 20 days median length of time for viral shedding, starting at first day of symptoms<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 52 years old median age for survivor<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 69 years old median age for non-survivor<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    What health complications of COVID-19 cause you to die?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    COVID-19 is well known for breathing problems, but other health complications also contribute towards the death from COVID-19. It is often a combination of these health problems that cause the body to fail and ultimately result in death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/th>COVID-19 Deaths (n=54)<\/th>COVID-19 Survivors (n=137)<\/th><\/tr>
    Sepsis<\/td>100% (54)<\/td>42% (58)<\/td><\/tr>
    Respiratory failure<\/td>98% (53)<\/td>36% (50)<\/td><\/tr>
    Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)<\/td>93% (50)<\/td>7% (9)<\/td><\/tr>
    Heart failure<\/td>52% (28)<\/td>12% (16)<\/td><\/tr>
    Septic shock<\/td>70% (38)<\/td>0<\/td><\/tr>
    Blood coagulation issues<\/td>50% (27)<\/td>7% (10)<\/td><\/tr>
    Acute cardiac injury<\/td>59% (32)<\/td>0.7% (1)<\/td><\/tr>
    Acute kidney injury<\/td>50% (27)<\/td>0.7% (1)<\/td><\/tr>
    Secondary infection<\/td>50% (27)<\/td>0.7% (1)<\/td><\/tr>
    Low protein blood levels<\/td>37% (20)<\/td>1.5% (2)<\/td><\/tr>
    Acidosis (body fluids are too acid)<\/td>30% (16)<\/td>0.7% (1)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Can blood tests be used to help determine the severity level of COVID-19 illness?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Lymphocyte levels:<\/strong> In COVID-19 survivors the blood lymphocyte counts are high and increase after day 7, when compared to patients that pass away who have severely low lymphocyte counts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    D-dimer, high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I, serum ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase, <\/strong>and IL-6 levels: <\/strong>These were all clearly elevated in non-survivors compared to the survivors. These levels in non-survivors all increased dramatically after approximately 2 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Summary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    • What is the death rate for people hospitalized with COVID-19? 28%<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What is the survival rate for people hospitalized with COVID-19? 72%<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What rate of hospitalized COVID-19 patients go into the intensive care unit (ICU)? 26%<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What percentage of COVID-19 patients who go into the ICU die? 78%<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What percentage of COVID-19 patients who go into the ICU survive? 22%<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • How many days from onset of first symptoms of COVID-19 until ICU admission? 12 days (median)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What is the median length of stay in ICU for COVID-19 patients? 8 day (median)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • How many days is the median hospital stay for COVID-19 patients? 11 days<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • How long does it take from the first COVID-19 symptoms until hospital discharge? 22 days (median)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • How long is viral shedding in COVID-19 patients, starting from the first day of symptoms? Until death or in survivors it is 20 days (median)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What is the average age of a hospitalized COVID-19 survivor? 52 years old<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • What is the average age of a hospitalized COVID-19 who dies? 69 years old<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • How many days from first COVID-19 symptoms until death for hospitalized patients? 18.5 days<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Medically reviewed by Melisa Puckey, BPharm. Last updated on March 28, 2022. What are the signs, symptoms and stages of COVID-19, and what causes death in COVID-19? How long do you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,776,333,561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-deaths","category-mortality-morbidity","category-symptoms-covid-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}