In China, 86% of 22 COVID-19 patients didn’t survive invasive ventilation at an intensive care unit in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began, according to a study published in The Lancet in February. Normally, the paper said, patients with severe breathing problems have a 50% chance of survival. A recent British study found two-thirds of COVID-19 patients put on mechanical ventilators ended up dying anyway, and a New York study found 88% of 320 mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients had died.