COVID-19 infection, admission and death among people with rare autoimmune rheumatic disease in England: results from the RECORDER project

Objectives: To calculate the rates of COVID-19 infection and COVID-19-related death among people with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases (RAIRD) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in England compared to the general population. Methods: We used Hospital Episode Statistics to identify all people alive 01 March 2020 with ICD-10 codes for RAIRD from the whole population of England. We used linked national health records (demographic, death certificate, admissions and PCR testing data) to calculate rates of COVID-19 infection and death up to 31 July 2020. Our primary definition of COVID-19-related death was mention of COVID-19 on the death certificate. General population data from Public Health England and the Office for National Statistics were used for comparison. We also describe COVID-19-related hospital admissions and all-cause deaths.Results: We identified a cohort of 168,680 people with RAIRD, of whom 1874 (1.11%) had a positive COVID-19 PCR test. The age-standardised infection rate was 1.54 (95% CI 1.50-1.59) times higher than in the general population. 713 (0.42%) people with RAIRD died with COVID-19 on their death certificate and the age-sex-standardised mortality rate for COVID-19-related death was 2.41 (2.30 – 2.53) times higher than in the general population. There was no evidence of an increase in deaths from other causes in the RAIRD population.Conclusions: During the first wave of COVID-19 in England, people with RAIRD had a 54% increased risk of COVID-19 infection and more than twice the risk of COVID-19-related death compared to the general population. These increases were seen despite shielding policies