Description

In December 2019, an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) attributed to a new coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, was described in the Wuhan region of China. This SARS, caused by SARS-CoV-2 was called COVID-19, spread across the globe, causing millions of cases on all continents, and thousands of deaths, being characterized as a pandemic.

COVID-19 is characterized by a flu-like syndrome, with symptoms such as fever, cough, myalgia and gastrointestinal symptoms. Most cases are mild, some even asymptomatic, but approximately 15% of patients have more severe presentation, and approximately 5% are critical (7).

The acute respiratory failure of critically ill patients with COVID-19 has different aspects, including hypoxemia of difficult treatment, associated in some cases with clotting disorders, changes in immunity and inflammatory phenomena that pose challenges for the management of these patients, whose mortality can be high.

The Hospital das Clnicas da Faculdade de Medicina de So Paulo implemented an action plan that provides for the creation of 200 ICU beds to serve patients with COVID-19. Knowing the characteristics of critically ill patients with COVID-19 and their clinical outcomes is extremely important to inform clinical decision-making and to guide the strategy to mitigate the epidemic, both within each hospital and ICU and in public health management.