{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.028996865203761754, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0219435736677116, 'mean_word_length': 5.51530612244898, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Impact of immunosuppression on mortality in critically ill COVID‐19 patients

We were interested to read the study from Fox et al., suggesting that patients with haematological malignancies should be treated with systemic anticancer therapy, despite intercurrent COVID-19 infection. Whether immunocompromised patients are at highest risk of severe COVID-19 is not clear. These patients may exhibit a defective immune response but are also frequently treated with immunosuppressive drugs that might diminish the harmful hyperinflammatory response. COVID-19related severity not only results from viral injury, but also from an excessive inflammatory state in a setting of dysfunctional Tcell response. The possibility that the underlying immune suppression hampers appropriate viral clearance –and exposes patients to more aggressive epithelial and endothelial insult – has not yet been fully investigated. In the study from Fox et al., only 19/55 patients required intensive respiratory support with non-invasive ventilation (n = 19) or invasive ventilation (n = 6) and no comparison between immunosuppressed and non-immunosuppressed patients could be reported. In a prospective single-centre cohort of 100 critically ill COVID-19 patients (70% men, median age 59 [IQR, 53–67],