Medication shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic: Saving more than COVID lives

In the United States (US) alone, 3,302,194 cases and 135,171 deaths due to COVID-19 have been confirmed as of July 12th, 2020 [1]. To put this in perspective, from 2018 –2019, the CDC estimated there were approximately 35,500,000 cases and 34,200 deaths due to influenza [2]. These statistics correspond to a case-fatality ratio (CFR), the number of deaths divided by the total number of confirmed cases, that is nearly 40 times that of influenza in the case of COVID -19 (CFR 0.1% and 4.0%, respectively).
Source: The American Journal of Emergency Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Source Type: research