What are Trump’s chances?

What are the chances of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death in a COVID-19 patient like Donald Trump?

There is a ton of data relating to age of the patient, sex of the patient, obesity, pre-existing conditions, etc. There are important caveats, however: there may be different outcomes depending on the quality of the medical care, availability of new treatments, but also different outcomes depending on the timing of the infection within the course of the pandemic. Much of the data available on the web are analyses from Feb. through April 2020, early in the course of the pandemic. Current observations suggest that the case fatality rate (deaths per total diagnosed cases) is changing for the better. Much of the data is also different depending on the country or region selected for analysis. F. ex. in Southern and Western states of the US patients are younger than in the North Eastern states, according to recent trends!

For patients like D. Trump (74 yo; obese; male) the chances are:

hospitalizationabout 30%
ICU admissionabout 10-15%
death about 5-10%

NB: obesity, with a BMI (Body Mass Index) of just over 30 in Pres. Trump’s case, increases the death rate by perhaps about 2-fold.

In one study from Georgia of 305 Covid-19 patients that were hospitalized, 39% were admitted to the ICU, but among those older than 65, 54% were admitted to the ICU. Of those in the ICU 37-48% died.

DT is already hospitalized. He now has perhaps a 1:2 chance of being admitted to the ICU and if he is admitted to the ICU, maybe a 1:3 or greater chance of death.

Here are some graphs to illustrate:

Death rates in the Spring of 2020 in various countries
Overall Case Fatality Rate (death rate) in the US over time

And here is a related article on the likely reasons for hospitalizing DT.

About D. Posnett MD

Emeritus Prof. of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College
This entry was posted in Coronavirus, Health Care, Pre-existing Conditions, Trump and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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