Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Italy during COVID-19 pandemic

Cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in northern Italy increased with the rise in COVID-19 cases, researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Some 362 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests were reported across four Italian provinces during the first 40 days of the COVID-19 outbreak, compared with just 229 cases during the same period in 2019. Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation was significantly less common during the pandemic. Some 28% of cardiac arrest cases during the pandemic occurred in people who likely had COVID-19; these cases accounted for most of the increase in cardiac arrests.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest correspondence in NEJM