We initially included 215 consecutive individuals age >18 years who were admitted to the medical intensive care unit (ICU) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Hospital that tested positive for COVID-19 (COVID+) between February 29 and June 28, 2020. In addition, we included 110 patients who were admitted with a suspicion of COVID-19 infection between March 13 and April 25, 2020 but who subsequently tested negative (COVID-) by nasopharyngeal swab polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. After excluding 15 patients who were COVID+ and 10 individuals who were COVID- who had a diagnosis of permanent atrial fibrillation on admission, 200 COVID+ and 100 COVID- patients were analyzed. Participants in each group were subsequently subclassified by the presence or absence of new onset atrial tachyarrhythmia (Figure 1). The project was approved by the UAB Institutional Review Board with waiver of informed consent.
Clinical data
Participant demographic information, past medical history, comorbidities, inflammatory markers, high sensitivity (HS) troponin levels, outpatient medications, and inpatient therapies were collected from the electronic medical record. In addition, data on the need for mechanical ventilation, duration of mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit and hospital lengths of stay, and in-hospital mortality was obtained. To standardize vasopressor dosing across participants