Twenty-two percent of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Germany between the end of February and mid-April 2020 died, according to a study published by WIdO, the research institute of the health insurance association AOK, on Wednesday.

At 25 percent, the mortality rate for hospitalized men was 6 percentage points higher than for women, according to the joint study by WIdO, the German Interdisciplinary Association for Critical Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) and the Technical University of Berlin.

"Regardless of gender, mortality was very high among older patients," the joint study found. The mortality rate of hospitalized COVID-19 patients between 70 and 79 years was 27 percent and even 38 percent for people aged 80 and older.

Around one in two patients who required artificial respiration died while the mortality for people without artificial respiration was only 16 percent, according to the study that evaluated data from 10,021 patients with confirmed COVID-19 who were treated across 920 German hospitals.

At 73 percent, the mortality rate was particularly high among patients on artificial respiration who were also on dialysis due to kidney failure, the study found.

"The high mortality rates clearly show that a relatively large number of patients with a very severe course of disease was treated in hospitals," said Juergen Klauber, managing director of WIdO.

The average time that COVID-19 patients stayed in German hospitals was 14 days, the study found. Patients who were not artificially ventilated had a significantly shorter stay of 12 days compared with 25 days for patients who required artificial respiration.

According to the online registry of intensive care beds in German hospitals by DIVI, 258 patients infected with COVID-19 were currently undergoing intensive care treatment, almost half of patients were being artificially ventilated.

Last Friday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) warned that the number of new daily COVID-19 cases in Germany was "significantly higher than in the previous weeks." For the last weeks, only 300 to 500 daily cases had been recorded.

According to the RKI, the number of registered COVID-19 cases in Germany increased by 684 within one day to 206,926 on Wednesday. The number of people who died from COVID-19 increased by 6 to 9,128.

RKI President Lothar Wieler said on Tuesday he was "very concerned about the latest developments" of COVID-19 case numbers in Germany.

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