Profile of COVID-19 Patients at Zero Delay COVID-19 Ward, in a Tertiary Care Hospital in South India

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a worldwide public health crisis. During the huge surge in COVID-19 cases, most of the patients arrived at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai were severe due to late presentation and also available evidence demonstrated that the delay in treatment is directly associated with increased mortality or poor patient outcome. As an innovative concept, Zero Delay COVID-19 Ward was set up to provide the required critical care for all severe COVID-19 cases. The experience of setting up of such Zero Delay COVID-19 Ward and profile of admitted COVID-19 patients are described in this paper. Methods: A total of 4515 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted at Zero Delay COVID-19 Ward was analyzed retrospectively from 7th July to 31st December 2020. Results: At the time of admission the frequency of dyspnea was 85.6% among them 99.1% improved after the oxygen therapy and other management at Zero Delay COVID-19 Ward. Of the 4515 COVID-19 individuals, about 1829 (40.5%) had comorbidity, 227 (5%) had died. Multivariable logistic regression analysis, COVID-19 death was more likely to be associated with comorbidity (OR: 18.687; 95% CI: 11.229-31.1) than other variables. Conclusions: Comorbidity is an independent high risk factor for mortality of COVID-19 patients. From our observation, it is strongly recommended that effective zero delay covid-19 ward model will help for the prevention of mortality in current/expected waves of COVID-19