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In reply to the discussion: Governor to take ventilators for NYC as hospitals buckle [View all]IcyPeas
(21,858 posts)17. I heard another sobering fact yesterday
I was listening to NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. She was interviewing trauma surgeon David Nott . He said in the interview that 50% of patients USING A RESPIRATOR still die within 2 weeks. That number shocked me.
Trauma surgeon David Nott, shown above in Bangladesh, has volunteered in war zones and disaster areas around the world. Now he's treating COVID-19 patients in London.
But unlike in his work abroad, Nott says, the health care workers treating COVID-19 did not volunteer for this duty. He warns that many will face profound challenges in the weeks and months to come especially with shortages of critical supplies.
"You will see things that you have never seen before," he says. "You will have to make very difficult decisions which are those difficult decisions you actually make in war zones about saving somebody's life."
"You will see things that you have never seen before," he says. "You will have to make very difficult decisions which are those difficult decisions you actually make in war zones about saving somebody's life."
Nott's memoir, War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line, recounts his experiences treating patients in troubled areas throughout the world. He also works to train front-line surgeons through the David Nott Foundation and the Royal College of Surgeons.
It's a 40 minute interview but very good. Listen here if you'd like:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/02/824703205/war-doctor-says-treating-covid-19-is-like-fighting-an-invisible-enemy
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I don't have enough information to comment on whether this is a good or flawed decision
bucolic_frolic
Apr 2020
#2
Number infected in U.S.A. - 250,000..Number Dead in U.S.A.- 6000...from above article
Stuart G
Apr 2020
#6