Continuous variables are presented as mean ± standard deviation and compared using independent samples t-tests. Categorical variables were expressed as frequencies and compared using chi-square tests. To examine mortality, we divided our study population into 4 groups: 1) COVID+ with atrial tachyarrhythmia, 2) COVID+ without atrial tachyarrhythmia, 3) COVID- with atrial tachyarrhythmia, and 4) COVID- without atrial tachyarrhythmia. Individual logistic regression models were constructed using the COVID- without atrial tachyarrhythmia group as the referent. Models were adjusted for age, sex, race, body mass index, and clinical characteristics that varied by COVID status (systolic heart failure, diastolic heart failure, atrial fibrillation, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cirrhosis, and tobacco use). All tests were two-tailed, and a P value <.05 (set a priori) was considered statistically significant. All statistical analyses and graphics creations were performed using SPSS Statistics version 26 software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and GraphPad Prism v. 7.0 (GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA).
Results
The baseline characteristics of those with and without COVID-19 are shown in Table 1. The cohort had many features that put them at high risk for COVID-19 complications with a mean age of 60 ± 16 years, 180 (60%) were men, 170 (57%) were African-American, 109 (36%) were