Factors associated with hospitalization and critical illness among 4,103 patients with COVID-19 disease in New York City

Christopher M. Petrilli; Simon A. Jones; Jie Yang; Harish Rajagopalan; Luke F. O'Donnell; Yelena Chernyak; Katie Tobin; Robert J. Cerfolio; Fritz Francois; Leora I. Horwitz

This study includes several limitations. We did not have access to symptom duration which is an important predictor of hospitalization: patients rarely require hospitalization with less than a week of symptoms. However, this limitation should not affect the demographic and clinical characteristics of those requiring admission and having severe deterioration. Importantly, as we are still early in our epidemic, many patients do not yet have final outcomes established, though the sample size of those who do is still more substantial than any prior study of associations with outcomes. Our patients were all from a single geographic region, treated within a single health system; factors associated with poor outcomes may differ elsewhere, though our patient population is very diverse. We did not have inflammatory markers available for nonhospitalized patients; it is possible that these would have been strong predictors for hospitalization risk as well if available. Finally, a standardized admission laboratory protocol was only established about two weeks into the epidemic, resulting in missing laboratory data for earlier patients, especially those who were less acutely ill.