Key secondary outcomes
deaths
Of the 77 patients judged by their physicians to require admission to the local ICU during the study, 46 (59.7%) were actually admitted, the main reason being shortage of ICU beds, especially during the second wave of the pandemic which started in mid-March 2021. In some cases, patients were deemed unsuitable for ICU admission based on low likelihood of surviving subsequent weaning from ventilation. 30 of 195 patients randomized to SoC and 16 of 192 patients randomized to SoC+Doxy were actually admitted to ICU (OR 0.5000, 95% CI 0.2629 to 0.9510, p 0.0346). Among the 204 patients who were actually treated with SoC, 34 (16.7%) were admitted to ICU, compared to 12 of 183 (6.6%) patients treated with SoC plus doxycycline (OR 0.3509, 95% CI 0.1757 to 0.7006, p 0.003). Among patients requiring ICU treatment as judged by their treating physicians, 34 of 51 (66.7%) treated with SoC compared to 12 of 26 (46.2%) treated with SoC plus doxycycline were admitted to ICU (Thirty-nine of 387 study participants (10.1%) died during the trial. All deaths occurred in hospital. No deaths were recorded after discharge during the 14 day telephone follow-up period. Thirty of the 31 patients (96.8%) who required intensive care but could not be admitted to an ICU died, compared to 9 of 46 patients (19.6%) who did receive critical care in ICU (