Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or COVID-19 Pandemic Resuscitation Plans and Decisions on Escalation and Limitation of Treatment

Disease resulting from infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has a high mortality rate with deaths predominantly caused by respiratory failure. As of 1 September 2020, over 25 million people had confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide and at least 850 000 people had died from the disease. As hospitals around the world are faced with an influx of patients with COVID-19, there is an urgent need for a pragmatic risk stratification tool that will allow the early identification of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 who are at the highest risk of death to guide management and optimise resource allocation.

As is apparent not only from medical literature, but also from popular media, there is a need for risk stratification and decision aid. The problem with our current health care capacity mainly pertains to ICU-admissions. Ideally, clinicians would be able to predict who benefits from invasive ICU-treatment, and who does not. Subsequently, patients for whom ICU-admission is futile,doctors can install advanced care directives to refrain from escalation and limit the curative treatment they receive, and rather focus on palliation. As the investigators of this study previously discovered, patients are not unwilling to discuss these matters. In COVID-19 patients, three interventions seem logical to warrant special attention: ICU-admission, invasive ventilatory support and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The latter because mortality in cardiac arrest patients with concurrent COVID appears higher than in non-COVID patients and performing CPR in patients with contagious diseases can potentially bring harm to health care providers.

Prognostic scores attempt to transform complex clinical pictures into tangible numerical values.

Dutch clinicians in general have been particularly busy identifying and providing prognostic scores for mortality and ICU-admission. Recent reviews listed many prognostic scores used for COVID-19, which varied in their setting, predicted outcome measure, and the clinical parameters included. It also highlights the importance of age, something that has been a subject to political debate. Therefore, in the past months, two Dutch research groups and one British group have developed two prognostic scores:

1. COVID Outcome Prediction in the Emergency department: