3 ms·

I wonder what percentage of people have been saved by ventilators vs. merely had their death delayed.

cameldrv 7y ago
Mortality rate of people who get put on a ventilator is in the ballpark of 40%.
lutorm 7y ago
It appears 5-10% of people need ventilators, and "need a ventilator" basically means that you will die without one. So the difference between that 5-10% and the actual death rate of <1% should be your answer.
- marknutter 7y ago
  I guess it really comes down to whether or not someone actually needed it, which is a very difficult thing to determine.
arbitrary_name 7y ago
Curious as well. I find that in the US, we have an understandable but sometimes costly attachment to 'treat at all costs'. I lost a family member to cancer last year - and was pushed by providers to pursue treatment that would have bankrupted me and my family, while adding (maybe) a few months of (low quality) life to someone already in pain and confined to a hospital bed. I was made to feel callous about balancing the collective 80+ years of my family's life going forward, against the 80 days or less of an elderly relative. If we can't break out of that mindset, then the coming coronavirus storm is going to provide some very painful choices on us, as it already has in other countries such as Italy.
- samsonradu 7y ago
  I’m sorry to hear that but you are spot on. Some decisions require cold-blood and we can only hope we chose the lesser evil.
zepearl 7y ago
Here are some stats about Italy: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1593946/embed https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1593946/embed (extracted from here: https://lab24.ilsole24ore.com/coronavirus/ https://lab24.ilsole24ore.com/coronavirus/ ) ("Morti giornalieri = daily deaths | "Terapia intensiva" = total amount of people in intensive care on that day) As people who need a ventilator are in intensive care (but I admit that that includes as well people that have other types of complications who might not need/be using a ventilator), an idea of that can maybe be extrapolated by comparing that number vs. the number of deaths (daily? total?)? Thinking more about it, another complication with these numbers is that there are probably already now not enough ventilators, therefore the deaths might include people that died because of the lack of a ventilator... .

Mortality rate of people who get put on a ventilator is in the ballpark of 40%.

It appears 5-10% of people need ventilators, and "need a ventilator" basically means that you will die without one. So the difference between that 5-10% and the actual death rate of <1% should be your answer.

marknutter 7y ago
I guess it really comes down to whether or not someone actually needed it, which is a very difficult thing to determine.

arbitrary_name 7y ago

Curious as well. I find that in the US, we have an understandable but sometimes costly attachment to 'treat at all costs'. I lost a family member to cancer last year - and was pushed by providers to pursue treatment that would have bankrupted me and my family, while adding (maybe) a few months of (low quality) life to someone already in pain and confined to a hospital bed. I was made to feel callous about balancing the collective 80+ years of my family's life going forward, against the 80 days or less of an elderly relative. If we can't break out of that mindset, then the coming coronavirus storm is going to provide some very painful choices on us, as it already has in other countries such as Italy.

samsonradu 7y ago
I’m sorry to hear that but you are spot on. Some decisions require cold-blood and we can only hope we chose the lesser evil.

zepearl 7y ago

Here are some stats about Italy: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1593946/embed https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1593946/embed (extracted from here: https://lab24.ilsole24ore.com/coronavirus/ https://lab24.ilsole24ore.com/coronavirus/ ) ("Morti giornalieri = daily deaths | "Terapia intensiva" = total amount of people in intensive care on that day) As people who need a ventilator are in intensive care (but I admit that that includes as well people that have other types of complications who might not need/be using a ventilator), an idea of that can maybe be extrapolated by comparing that number vs. the number of deaths (daily? total?)? Thinking more about it, another complication with these numbers is that there are probably already now not enough ventilators, therefore the deaths might include people that died because of the lack of a ventilator... .