What really killed COVID-19 patients wasn't a cytokine storm, suggests study (2023)
Secondary bacterial infection of the lung (pneumonia) was extremely common in patients with COVID-19, affecting almost half the patients who required support from mechanical ventilation. By applying machine learning to medical record data, scientists at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine found that secondary bacterial pneumonia that does not resolve was a key driver of death in patients with COVID-19. It may even exceed death rates from the viral infection itself. The scientists also found evidence that COVID-19 does not cause a "cytokine storm," so often believed to cause death. The April 2023 study was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation . "Our study highlights the importance of preventing, looking for and aggressively treating secondary bacterial pneumonia in critically ill patients with severe pneumonia, including those with COVID-19," said senior author Dr. Benjamin Singer, an associate professor of medicine at Nor...