Although the spreading SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus usually causes only mild respiratory symptoms, the COVID-19 disease progresses so severely in around five percent of those affected that acute respiratory distress can occur. “The mortality rate in these cases is high,” says Dr. Thomas Wiesmann, who attended the patient along with the intensive care team in the Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care at Marburg University Hospital.
The patient is a 65-year-old woman without pre-existing conditions who was admitted to the hospital for progressive shortness of breath and fever. Her shortness of breath worsened so rapidly that she had to be intubated to receive artificial ventilation three hours after admission. A standard molecular genetic test confirmed she was infected with SARS-CoV-2. The patient’s overall prognosis was assessed as very poor due to extensive organ damage.