This was posted by a doctor in New Orleans on a different message board I've frequented over the years. Absolutely terrifying. You all stay safe. So, just to give some perspective. Yesterday, I was in a 3 hr meeting at the hospital deciding on our principles of treatment once the trigger of a 'disaster' declaration is declared. I expect it will be this week. Today, we have 18 Covid patients (btwm for you young folk out and about in bars, 2 of the folks on vents are healthy twentysomethings). 3 days ago, we had 2. It is truly at the exponential phase. We'll be Italy in 7-10 days. So anyway, to give an idea of what we discussed: there was serious discussion about refusing to intubate anyone 65 or over (in China, 65 was a major inflection point -- if you were 65 or over, your mortality if placed on a vent is 80%. If even 64, the mortality was 1/6th as high if placed on a vent. The AVERAGE time on a vent was 2 weeks for covid patients. We are a Level 1 Trauma Ctr in a city with lots of GSW's and accidents, but we only have 60 vents. Once those 60 vents are taken, covid folks will be SOL. We had a long discussion about withholding vents for possible traumas -- still up in the air. It is quite likely that we will not perform CPR on covid pt's who code, regardless of age. In general, we try to keep pt's on the vent if they are clinically stable for an indefinite period of time. We discussed having a 72 hr threshold -- if it doesn't look like mom is improving in 72 hrs, and another pt needs the vent, we would withdraw care. Mind you, these Draconian measures will likely be in play by the end of this week... Enviado desde mi SM-G973U mediante Tapatalk