Usefulness of step down units to manage survivors of critical Covid-19 patients

•The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic resulted in huge number of patients requiring hospital and ICU admission. Step-down units have been helpful to shorten ICU length of stay and free beds.•Patients surviving Covid-19 associated acute respiratory failure transferred from ICU to step down units may show significant improvement in physiological and clinical conditions and can be discharged home or to rehabilitation facilities in the vast majority.•However, these patients showed also reduced muscle strength and functional independence, which improved but did not return to normal within 19 days of step-down unit stay.