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Venous thrombo-embolism is a major and often unrecognized cause of morbidity and mortality in patients after acute strokes. Three hundred and five elderly patients were randomly allocated to either control (161) or treatment (144) with 5000 units calcium heparin subcutaneously 8-hourly for two weeks. A reduction in deep-vein thrombosis rate from 72.7% in the control group to 22.2% in treatment patients was achieved. In patients who died (84), post-mortem examination to look for pulmonary emboli was performed in 71. Comparison between treated and untreated patients showed significantly fewer deaths and pulmonary emboli in the treated group. Most of the beneficial effect on mortality was seen in patients with lighter strokes. When patients with pulmonary emboli at post-mortem were excluded, there was no significant difference in the death rate in treatment (17) and control (14) groups. At post-mortem, 9.9% of the strokes were haemorrhagic (4 in the treatment and 3 in the control group). Low-dose calcium heparin given subcutaneously following acute stroke reduced the number of deep-vein thromboses, pulmonary emboli and deaths without increasing the number of haemorrhagic strokes in this study.

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T he coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the largest public health crisis in over a century. 1 As of Jan. 15, 2021, COVID-19 has resulted in over 113 million infections and almost 2.5 million deaths globally. 2 The global crude mortality rate among patients diagnosed with COVID-19 is about 3%, but some countries have reported rates that are up to 3 times higher. 2,3 Factors explaining these variations include population differences in demographics, health status and socioeconomics, as well as system factors such as the availability of testing, pandemic preparedness and response, with others yet to be uncovered. 4,5 There is an urgent need for high-quality, populationlevel data to understand modifiable risks for disease severity

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