ABSTRACT
Background and Aim: As of 22 June 2020, Italy had 238.499cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) infections, with about 35.000 deaths. A single-center observational cohort study was conducted to evaluate epidemiological, demographic, clinical and laboratory data of SARS-CoV-2patients who were admitted to the sub-intensive therapy unit ofthe COVID Unit Hospital F. Miulli (Acquaviva delle Fonti, Bari, Italy),from Mar 17, 2020 to May 17, 2020.Materials and Methods: Demographic data, symptoms, laboratory values, comorbidities, treatments, and clinical outcomes wereall collected and analysed. Results: A total of 143 SARS-CoV-2 patients, 60.4% males, meanage 68 yrs , were included. Twenty-seven patients (19%) had clinical signs of severe pneumonia and 6.3% had an ARDS, ICU admissions were 2.9%. The most represented comorbidities were:chronic heart failure (10.3%), diabetes (15.5%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (17.8%), cancer (13.2%), kidney chronicfailure (28.2%). The used drugs have been distributed as follows:lopinavir/ritonavir (30.4%), hydroxychloroquine (67.8%), steroid(21.2%), tocilizumab (4%). Length of stay was 21 days and theaverage negative time of the second nasopharyngeal swab was18 days. In our study, a total of 20 patients (13.9%) died, withmean age 86 yrs .Conclusions: Our findings show that SARS-CoV-2 infection maybe severe, requiring intensive care admission, expecially in olderpatients and in those with comorbidities.