Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Lethality Did not Change Over Time in Two Italian Provinces

  1. Maria Elena Flacco
  2. Cecilia Acuti Martellucci
  3. Francesca Bravi
  4. Giustino Parruti
  5. Alfonso Mascitelli
  6. Lorenzo Mantovani
  7. Stefania Boccia
  8. Lamberto Manzoli

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Abstract

This retrospective cohort study included all the subjects diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection (n = 2493) in 2 Italian provinces. Two hundred fifty-eight persons died, after a median of 14.0 ± 11.0 days. Adjusting for age, gender, and main comorbidities, the ≥28-day case-fatality rate did not decrease from March to April 2020 (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.93; P = .6).

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  1. Version published to 10.1093/ofid/ofaa556
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.23.20110882: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: The study complies with the Declaration of Helsinki, the research protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Emilia-Romagna Region (code 287, approved on March 24, 2020), and the requirement for informed consent was waived because of the retrospective and pseudo-anonymized nature of the data.
    Consent: The study complies with the Declaration of Helsinki, the research protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Emilia-Romagna Region (code 287, approved on March 24, 2020), and the requirement for informed consent was waived because of the retrospective and pseudo-anonymized nature of the data.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Acknowledging these caveats, our data provide the first evidence of a lack of a significant decrease of SARS-CoV-2 case-fatality rate between March and April, 2020, on a prospective sample, adjusting for several potential predictors of death. We trust that some of the many ongoing trials testing new therapies [24, 25] - starting from those reporting promising results on dexamethasone [26] - will determine a breakthrough in the clinical course of the pandemic.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.23.20110882 on medRxiv