With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19 | Hacker News Reader

With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19

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18 pointssmacktoward12 comments

Looking at the announcements about alternate manufacturers starting to turn out 10s of thousands of vents, I think we're about to be drowning in the things. Especially as it becomes apparent that for many patients a vent is the wrong answer after all.

I've been following the whole ventilator fiasco for weeks, esp. since they have a 66% - 90% mortality rate with corona.

This is one of the best articles by far.

A summary is:

- corona's effect on the lungs resembles altitude sickness, not common diseases

- stay on a cannula, cpap or bipap as long as possible, preferably at home

- US doctors are choosing ventilators to prevent aerosol contamination, at the expense of patients' lives.

AMA.

- US doctors are choosing ventilators to prevent aerosol contamination, at the expense of patients' lives.

Aerosol contamination leads to heavy viral exposure to health workers and all patients in the vicinity. This leads to more sick patients, and fewer healthy health workers. Which leads to more fatalities.

So send them home with an O2 bottle and a cannula, or to a quarantine building. Don't intubate just to protect staff.

I doubt anyone is intubating to protect staff. What they are doing is following the protocols because the science to change them is nowhere near ready.

Actually, yes, news reports have doctors on record saying that.

And from their perspective they have a point - if patients are sitting around mouth-breathing, everybody in the hospital will get infected. Then where do you get ICU staff?

Then they can only be alone in their house, right? It would be dangerous to say be in your own bedroom with others in other rooms in the house, because they'd exposed.

Expand that to a hotel, if you put people in hotel rooms with these, you couldn't turn over the room without a very very thorough cleaning. I'd be worried to stay there until a few weeks had passed with no occupants.

Are those two scenarios I give real problems?

Just put an exhaust filter on. Amazon had a bunch listed

> AMA

Alright ;-). For someone who already owns a CPAP for sleep apnea, is it of any use should they get infected with corona?

I have a BPAP for sleep apnoea, and am also curious to know this.

Yes to CPAP and BIPAP, for a couple of reasons:

1) Because corona is like altitude sickness, even a little more oxygen in the bloodstream may be sufficient.

Chinese doctors recommend and have been using cannulas, CPAPs and BIPAPs.

2) Because ventilator intubation and required anesthetics for out to 21 days is basically a death sentence with 66& to 90% mortality, cannulas, CPAPs and BIPAPs are much better.

There are many health problems with ventilators, but forcing air under high pressure into your lungs turns them to mush.

The issue with cannulas, CPAPs an BIPAPs is that a breathing corona patient infects bystanders, so in your bedroom you'd want to avoid using AC/heating vents (use a window or quartz heater) and tell your housemates to wear a mask.

Good Lancet summary from a Chinese hospital: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...

The patients on ventilators might be sicker, but they definitely have extremely high mortality.

Doctors are looking at how to interpret blood gases to better understand which kind of breathing assistance is actually needed, rather than automatically reaching for a ventilator.

Thanks, this is pretty interesting stuff

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