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The current international outbreak of COVID-19 respiratory illness due to SARS-CoV-2 virus results in high rates of hospitalisation and intensive care unit (ICU) admission [1]. ICU resources in Europe are limited [2], and managing ICU-bed flow is therefore vital to ensure high quality of care to all patients. The National Early Warning Score (NEWS) is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in its guidelines for predicting the risk of clinical deterioration of COVID-19 patients [3]. In this journal, Liao et al.[4] recently proposed a modified version of the NEWS score (mNEWS) for COVID-19 patients with age≥ 65 years (score 3 points) added as an independent risk factor for survival. However, the authors did not provide data to support this modification and we did not identify published peer-reviewed research studies on it use to guide decision-making in COVID-19 patients. In this study, the performance of NEWS and mNEWS scores is examined to predict clinical deterioration and ICU admission in COVID-19 patients. This retrospective study involved 363 adult patients with laboratory-confirmed infection of SARS-CoV-2 admitted to our institution, between March 10 and May 10, 2020. Using our institution database, NEWS and mNEWS values were collected throughout the ward admission. Clinical deterioration was defined as ICU admission or death. For statistical analysis, continuous measurements are presented as means±SDs or as medians [IQRs], which compared with unpaired bilateral t-test or the Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test when appropriate. Categorical variables were expressed as numbers (%). Predictive …