Scoring cytokine storm by the levels of MCP-3 and IL-8 accurately distinguished COVID-19 patients with high mortality

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global-spread infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. 1 COVID-19 causes heterogeneous disease phenotype, of which most patients exhibit mild to moderate symptoms, and ~15% progress to severe pneumonia, 5% of whom were eventually admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), septic shock and/or multiple organ failure, and exhibit a high mortality rate. Two major obstacles to the improvement of the clinical outcomes in these patients are inadequate identification of the determinant cytokines correlated with fatal outcomes, and an inability to determine whether an individual patient has high risks of ICU admission and fatality.