"Risk of admission to intensive care units due to Covid-19: comparative analysis between European countries"

Background: The Covid-19 epidemic has posed an unprecedented challenge to the European healthcare system, which has had to cope with a much higher than usual demand for hospitalization. This work is devoted to the construction and comparison of risk indicators of admission to intensive care units (ICU) for Covid-19 for eight European countries. Materials and methods: Using data from July 1, 2020, to January 16, 2022, the weekly percentage of ICU admissions with respect to hospitalizations was calculated and its trend was estimated; tests for differences in means were performed in order to classify the countries into two groups depending on their risk. Results: The proportion of ICU admissions remained relatively stable in each of the countries. The most southern countries (Italy, Spain and Greece) registered lower ICU risk, but higher hospitalization risk depending on the number of diagnosed cases. Vaccination contributed to reduce hospitalization and death risks, but not ICU risk. Conclusions: The pressure to the ICU caused by the pandemic has differed between the analysed countries. Mild winters in southern Europe could have worked out well for minor propagation and severity of the virus. Advance in population vaccination rates seems to have reduced the severity of the illness, but the percentage of hospitalizations that require ICU remains unchanged.