In December 2019 a new viral infectious disease caused by severe acute syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) broke out causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), emerging in China.^1-3 The disease spread in Europe including Italy since February 2020.

The transmission of the infection occurs mainly through salivary droplets.

The diagnosis is made by a nasal‐pharyngeal swab test using quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction to identify the viral nucleic acid in respiratory specimens.^{1, 2}

The prevalent symptoms are fever, dry cough, exertional dyspnea frequently associated with the radiological finding of pneumonia.

Several complications could be found, such as acute respiratory distress syndrome, arrhythmia, septicemia.

Lung failure is the main consequence of COVID‐19 pneumonia along with other possible multi‐organ injuries.^{4, 5} Among the comorbidities influencing prognosis smoke‐related the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) should be taken into account due to the resulting imbalance in the perfusion ventilation ratio favoring oxygen arterial desaturation.⁶

COVID‐19 can have different clinical manifestations in different age groups.⁷ We know that elderly subjects are more affected by the disease.⁸

In our study we treated and followed COVID‐19 hospitalized patients, we tried with this pilot study to better understand which factors are associated with the prognosis and focus on the differences in survival and general characteristics between patients hospitalized in wards with different intensity of care.

We analyzed retrospectively data regarding patients affected by COVID‐19 admitted to S. Andrea Hospital from March 1 to May 31, 2020. Two groups were compared: a group of 120 patients admitted to an internal medicine unit who have been treated with oxygen therapy with a group of 75 patients admitted to an intensive care unit, where patients were treated with intubation and mechanical ventilation.

This study was approved by S. Andrea Hospital‐Sapienza University Ethic Committee and a consent form has been provided by each patient.