Search

BackgroundThrombotic complications occur at high rates in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, yet the impact of intensive antithrombotic therapy on mortality is uncertain.Research QuestionHow does in-hospital mortality compare with intermediate-versus prophylactic-dose anticoagulation, and separately with in-hospital aspirin versus no antiplatelet therapy, in treatment of COVID-19?Study Design and MethodsUsing data from 2785 hospitalized adult COVID-19 patients, we established two separate, nested cohorts of patients (1) who received intermediate- or prophylactic-dose anticoagulation (“anticoagulation cohort”, N = 1624), or (2) who were not on home antiplatelet therapy and received either in-hospital aspirin or no antiplatelet therapy (“aspirin cohort”, N = 1956). Propensity score matching utilizing various markers of illness severity and other patient-specific covariates yielded treatment groups with well-balanced covariates in each cohort. The primary outcome was cumulative incidence of in-hospital death.ResultsAmong propensity score-matched patients in the anticoagulation cohort (N = 382), in a multivariable regression model, intermediate-compared to prophylactic-dose anticoagulation was associated with a significantly lower cumulative incidence of in-hospital death (hazard ratio 0.518 [0.308-0.872]). Among propensity-score matched patients in the aspirin cohort (N = 638), in a multivariable regression model, in-hospital aspirin compared to no antiplatelet therapy was associated with a significantly lower cumulative incidence of in-hospital death (hazard ratio 0.522 [0.336-0.812]).InterpretationIn this propensity score-matched, observational study of COVID-19, intermediate-dose anticoagulation and aspirin were each associated with a lower cumulative incidence of in-hospital death.Summary conflict of interest statementsNo conflict of interest exists for any author on this manuscript.

BackgroundPatients with comorbid conditions have a higher risk of mortality with SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection, but the impact on heart failure patients living near a disease hotspot is unknown. Therefore, we sought to characterize the prevalence and outcomes of COVID-19 in a live registry of heart failure patients across an integrated health care system in Connecticut.MethodsIn this retrospective analysis, the Yale Heart Failure Registry (NCT04237701) that includes 26,703 patients with heart failure across a 6-hospital integrated health care system in Connecticut was queried on April 16th, 2020 for all patients tested for COVID-19. Sociodemographic and geospatial data as well as, clinical management, respiratory failure, and patient mortality were obtained via the real-time registry. Data on COVID-19 specific care was extracted by retrospective chart review.ResultsCOVID-19 testing was performed on 900 symptomatic patients, comprising 3.4% of the Yale Heart Failure Registry (N=26,703). Overall, 206 (23%) were COVID-19+. As compared to COVID-19-, these patients were more likely to be older, black, have hypertension, coronary artery disease, and were less likely to be on renin angiotensin blockers (P- patients tended to be more diffusely spread across the state whereas COVID-19+ were largely clustered around urban centers. 20% of COVID-19+ patients died, and age was associated with increased risk of death [OR 1.92 95% CI (1.33–2.78); P+ patients who were ≥85 years of age rates of hospitalization were 87%, rates of death 36%, and continuing hospitalization 62% at time of manuscript preparation.ConclusionsIn this real-world snapshot of COVID-19 infection among a large cohort of heart failure patients, we found that a small proportion had undergone testing. Patients found to be COVID-19+ tended to be black with multiple comorbidities and clustered around lower socioeconomic status communities. Elderly COVID-19+ patients were very likely to be admitted to the hospital and experience high rates of mortality.

THE NOTOR] ETY that postmodernism has achieved in recent times derives from two things. On the one hand, its arrival as a mode of analysis, undermining the established certainties and analytical frameworks of many disciplines, has earned it the enmity of scholars occupying positions across the political spectrum. On the other hand, it has now become something of a commonplace, both popularly and within the academy, that we stand at the dawn of a new postmodern era, one in which the social, economic, political, and cultural arrangements of the modem era begun in the Enlightenment and the revolutions of the 18 century are being fundamentally transformed. As with the arrival of postmodernist analysis, the passage to a condition of postmodernity is deplored by many. Indeed, it is a hallmark of the political left today to stand in opposition to both postmodernism and postmodernity. Indicative of the left's repudiation of postmodernism is James Laxer's The Undeclared War: Class conflict in the Age of Cyber Capitalism. The central aim of this work is the analysis of what Laxer takes to be a new, postmodem "cyber capitalism," where the triumph of the market and market ideology over social democracy is nearly complete and where class conflict has re-emerged as a major fact of contemporary social existence. While this aim dominates, of clearly equal concern to Laxer is the revindication, through its practical application, of an essentially Marxist social theory (which is to say one which takes the analysis of global capitalism and class relations as essential) against a faddish postmodernism whose effect, he argues, is to reinforce the social arrangements of the new capitalism. So while it is the analysis of postmodernity (which is to say contemporary