Secondary bacterial pneumonia killed many COVID-19 patients who were on a ventilator, according to a new study.
Researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois looked at data from 585 mechanically-ventilated patients with severe pneumonia and respiratory failure. Of those patients, 190 had COVID-19. The patients were in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
A ventilator is a machine that is used to help a patient breathe by providing oxygen.
The authors developed and employed a machine learning approach called CarpeDiem to analyze the medical record data of the patients.
They found that nearly half of the ventilated COVID-19 patients in the study developed a secondary pneumonia caused by bacteria, after the patient had already developed an upper respiratory infection that was caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus….