Abstract
WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ABOUT THIS TOPIC? During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, tremendous efforts have been made in countries to suppress epidemic peaks and strengthen hospital services to avoid hospital strain and ultimately reduce the risk of death from COVID-19. However, there is limited empirical evidence that hospital strain increases COVID-19 deaths. WHAT IS ADDED BY THIS REPORT? We found the risk of death from COVID-19 was linearly associated with the number of patients currently in hospitals, a measure of hospital strain, before the Omicron period. This risk could be increased by a maximum of 188.0%. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTICE? These findings suggest that any (additional) effort to reduce hospital strain would be beneficial during early large COVID-19 outbreaks and possibly also others alike. During an Omicron outbreak, vigilance remains necessary to prevent excess deaths caused by hospital strain as happened in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.