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The bottleneck is the number of mechanical ventilators available. Ideally we want someone on a ventilator to be in an ICU and under a doctor's supervision, but

The bottleneck is the number of mechanical ventilators available. Ideally we want someone on a ventilator to be in an ICU and under a doctor's supervision, but in a crisis you can put a ventilator anywhere. A patient with COVID-19, will likely spend about 2 weeks on a ventilator. Unfortunately, there are only about 60-70,000 mechanical ventilators in the entire US (and maybe double that if you include older less automated ones), and about half of them are for neonatal wards. [source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215). 10% of COVID-19 infections require mechanical ventilation. [source](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT04244591 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT04244591). This means that if the US encountered an outbreak on the scale of what is happening in China, then we would also quickly run out of ventilators, and the mortality rate would be 2-4x what it would be otherwise, rather than the 1-2% mortality rate everyone is expecting.

DoctorOetker 7y ago
Assuming non-containment (starting to look more and more likely), then an unknown fraction of the population will get sick. The Diamond ~~Princess~~ Petri Dish Experiment, shows that at least 218 out of 3700 people are susceptible ( > 5.9% ). If we knew how many of these would eventually need respirators then we could estimate a lower bound on respirators for a 330M population. Working the other way around: 33000 respirators / 330M = 1 / 10 0000 so if 5.9% gets infected and we can only give 0.01% a respirator, then at most 0.17% of covid-positive people can be given a respirator. This assumes they all need their respirators simultaneously (pessimistic) but also assumes the Petri Disk experiment stays at 5.9% (optimistic) EDIT: what kind of query did you use to find the number of respirators in the US? How can I find similar numbers for European countries? How hard is it do DIY a respirator? If we look at the international statistics for dead and serious / critical people per confirmed case, and interpret that as the fraction needing a respirator we get: 22 / 523 = 4.2% of covid-positives seem to need respirators So we expect 4.2% * 5.9% = 0.25% of the population to neeed a respirator, while we only have enough for 0.01%, so assuming perfect triage of who needs it and who doesnt, 24 out of 25 who actually need one won't get one. It seems like we really are heading to a CFR of 4.2% * 24 / 25 such that there will be at least > 5.9% * 4.2% * 24 / 25 deaths, where the 5.9% can only rise depending on Diamond Princess evolution...
- DoctorOetker 7y ago
  Currently 355 of 3700 Diamond Petri Dish confirmations, so replace 5.9% with 9.6% so if containment fails it looks like 4.2% * 9.6% = ~ 0.4% of the population at large would die.

DoctorOetker 7y ago

Assuming non-containment (starting to look more and more likely), then an unknown fraction of the population will get sick. The Diamond ~~Princess~~ Petri Dish Experiment, shows that at least 218 out of 3700 people are susceptible ( > 5.9% ). If we knew how many of these would eventually need respirators then we could estimate a lower bound on respirators for a 330M population. Working the other way around: 33000 respirators / 330M = 1 / 10 0000 so if 5.9% gets infected and we can only give 0.01% a respirator, then at most 0.17% of covid-positive people can be given a respirator. This assumes they all need their respirators simultaneously (pessimistic) but also assumes the Petri Disk experiment stays at 5.9% (optimistic) EDIT: what kind of query did you use to find the number of respirators in the US? How can I find similar numbers for European countries? How hard is it do DIY a respirator? If we look at the international statistics for dead and serious / critical people per confirmed case, and interpret that as the fraction needing a respirator we get: 22 / 523 = 4.2% of covid-positives seem to need respirators So we expect 4.2% * 5.9% = 0.25% of the population to neeed a respirator, while we only have enough for 0.01%, so assuming perfect triage of who needs it and who doesnt, 24 out of 25 who actually need one won't get one. It seems like we really are heading to a CFR of 4.2% * 24 / 25 such that there will be at least > 5.9% * 4.2% * 24 / 25 deaths, where the 5.9% can only rise depending on Diamond Princess evolution...

DoctorOetker 7y ago
Currently 355 of 3700 Diamond Petri Dish confirmations, so replace 5.9% with 9.6% so if containment fails it looks like 4.2% * 9.6% = ~ 0.4% of the population at large would die.