Jump to content

Coronavirus: ‘Stay at home’ message may have led to rise in heart attack deaths during lockdown, study finds


Patients suffering heart attacks during the coronavirus lockdown stayed away from hospitals with some dying as a result, a new study has found.

In an analysis of more than 50,000 patients who suffered heart attacks and were treated in 99 NHS hospitals in England both before and after lockdown, researchers found the proportion of deaths for patients with a milder form of heart attack jumped during the first month of lockdown.

Those suffering more severe heart attacks actually saw a lower death rate with hospitals keeping their emergency heart services running.

Dr Jianhua Wu, associate professor in biostatistics at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study, said: “It has revealed that although patients were able to get access to high levels of care, the study suggests a lot of very ill people were not seeking emergency treatment and that may have been an unintended consequence of the ‘stay at home’ messaging.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 5 August 2020

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.


Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...