Figure 4.

a) Immediate cause of death at autopsy (weeks after first COVID-19 symptoms/SARS-CoV-2 test, N=771). Radial heat map (scaled to rows) of the immediate cause of death sorted by interval between first COVID-19 symptoms/SARS-CoV-2 test and death shows highest prevalence of DAD/ARDS as immediate cause of death in the first two weeks of the disease, decreasing subsequently, and an inverse development for multiorgan failure as the second most prevalent immediate cause of death (no significant differences between disease duration intervals). b-e) A further stratification of a) by region shows similar regional trends for cause of death per week after first COVID-19 symptoms/SARS-CoV-2 test. The higher prevalence of DAD/ARDS in COVID-19 autopsies after a disease duration ≤2 (p < 0·01) and >2 ≤5 weeks in the South compared to the East (p < 0·05) and ≤2 weeks in the South compared to the West were significant (p < 0·05), as well as the decrease of DAD/ARDS from ≤2 weeks to >5 weeks in the South (p < 0·05) and higher prevalence of multiorgan failure after >5 weeks in the East compared to the North (p < 0·05) and to the West (p < 0·01), two-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post-test). All radial heatmaps are scaled to row, colour codes and labelling identical to a).