id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
cord-339162-l5zxic3y	Volpato, Stefano	A Frail Health Care System for an Old Population: Lesson form the COVID-19 Outbreak in Italy	2020-04-21		.txt	text/plain	1509	60	45	Higher mortality rates of older patients are expected as complicated COVID-19 is characterized by severe interstitial pneumonia followed by acute respiratory distress syndrome, thromboembolic events, and eventually multiorgan failure, a cascade of negative events that is obviously more likely in older frail patients, those with elevated multimorbidity and reduced functional reserve. The sudden explosion of the COVID-19 outbreak, with almost 10% of infected patients having respiratory failure and requiring mechanical ventilation has immediately saturated the acute care beds availability of Lombardy and northern Emilia-Romagna, including intensive care units' (ICU) beds. From this point of view, the Italian tragedy suggests that a prompt population mass testing for detecting asymptomatic infected people along with immediate, widespread, draconian measures of social isolation, along with contract tracing and quarantine, might have more strongly reduced the rate of COVID-19 transmission, with the greatest benefit for frail patients, more prone to a complicated course of the disease.	./cache/cord-339162-l5zxic3y.txt	./txt/cord-339162-l5zxic3y.txt