Assistance time and peripheral oxygen saturation in prehospital emergency data as predictors of COVID19 hospital outcomes

To verify if data obtained in the prehospital evaluation of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) during the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with clinical outcomes: mechanical ventilation, hospital discharge, and death. This is a retrospective analysis involving secondary data from the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) records and the Health Surveillance Information System of patients assisted by the EMS in Manaus, from January to June 2020, the period of the first peak of COVID-19 cases. The combination of the two databases yielded a total of 1.190 patients, who received a first EMS response and were later admitted to hospital with SARS and had data on clinical outcomes of interest available. Patients were predominantly male (754, 63.4%), with a median age of 66 (IQR: 54.0–78.0) years. SARS illness before medical assistance was associated to need for invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV, p