Ventilator Insights

Published by

Clarissa

December 7, 2021

By the way, remember all that panic back in March 2020 about how there weren’t enough ventilators for COVID patients? And how we urgently needed more ventilators? Then it turned out that 90% of people put on ventilators died, mostly from bacterial lung infections. Ventilators are deadly for COVID patients.

But what I didn’t know is why ventilators were so aggressively used when they were of no use for COVID patients. Turns out the goal was to prevent medical personnel from being infected. Intubated people don’t cough, don’t aerosolize, and hence don’t infect. This was stated openly in an FDA guidance in March. The result was thousands of needless deaths in NYC. The investigation into these deaths was stopped in its tracks by a hastily thrown-together #MeTooish assault on Cuomo, the New York governor who led the way on ventilator use in COVID.

This is from Berenson’s book.

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6 responses to “Ventilator Insights”

random reader

December 7, 2021

The worst part is that the ventilator treatment is still happening, especially in European countries, still accompanied with articles in the newspapers about how they will have to ration ventilators. Where I am from, there is a hospital in which every single covid patient connected to a ventilator has died. Effectively, it is a treatment with 100% mortality in that hospital. And in case you are wondering, they did not treat a small number of patients. Yes, there are hospitals where your chances are better. The problem is that in truth, the main limitation of the ventilator use is not the number of devices available, but skilled personnel who is able to use them properly and knows how to monitor the patients.

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 7, 2021
  
  This is also austerity. When I had COVID, I knew that I wasn’t going to the hospital because I’m afraid they’ll kill me with a ventilator. It’s very convenient to have many people scared away from the hospital. If you don’t have to treat them, that’s money saved. Very convenient.
  
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  1. valter07
    
    December 7, 2021
    
    Well, I see a logical contradiction here:
    There are people like you who are scared of the hospitals. Those people who believe the “official position” are not scared of the hospitals. And the authorities are obviously interested in the majority of people trusting them, not the other way around.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      December 7, 2021
      
      It’s ok, those who keep trusting pay for austerity just like I do through skyrocketing prices. I just bought my husband’s favorite brand of shampoo. Costs the same but the bottle looks like the daughter of the bottle I bought before. Tiny, pathetic little thing.
      
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Just George

December 7, 2021

The medical professionals I spoke with at the time had no idea that you could simply use high flow oxygen, and no one wanted to take the risk with seriously ill patients. Imo that unknowledge combined with fear was the driving factor behind perpetuation of normal ventilator treatment for low blood oxygen patients.

In a few hospitals, sure, they might have plugged patients up with a vent to avoid infecting staff. Across the world, imo, not very likely.

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methylethyl

December 7, 2021

To be fair, hospitals (well, OK, the hospital my husband works for– I can’t speak for the rest) know about the ventilator thing now, and they avoid putting covid patients on them unless there are simply no other options, and the patient will die without one. They are bad news, but they aren’t a 100% death sentence. Some patients are able to come back off the vents. But if you’re in the hospital with C19 and need mechanical assistance to breath, they will likely try a high-flow nasal cannula and/or a bipap machine first.

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