MedPageToday SARS-CoV-2 infection itself played minor role in OHCA survival rates in Seattle
Epidemiological records suggest that Seattle’s drop in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival during the pandemic could be largely explained by indirect factors such as treatment delays, not acute SARS-CoV-2 infections.
While instances of EMS-treated OHCA tended to track closely with community SARS-CoV-2 levels and acute SARS-CoV-2 infection in 2020-2021, only approximately 5% of people with OHCA, whether treated or dead on arrival (DOA), actually had evidence of COVID-19, reported researchers led by Jennifer Liu, MPH, of Public Health-Seattle & King County in Washington.
The group estimated that acute infection was responsible for 18.5% of the downturn in OHCA survival rates when comparing prepandemic (2018-2019) versus pandemic (2020-2021) periods. In contrast, 68.2% of the survival decline was mediated by adverse trends in so-called “Utstein elements” such as public location of OHCA, witness status, non-EMS automated external defibrillator use, and EMS response intervals.
“In this cohort study of COVID-19 and OHCA, a substantial proportion of the higher OHCA incidence and lower survival during the pandemic was not directly due to SARS-CoV-2 infection but indirect factors that challenged OHCA prevention and treatment,” the investigators concluded from their study, published in JAMA Network