Thanks, John.
>That's all true, but what I would say is that, even with the small numbers (and uncertainties about how ill the patients were), those figures are broadly as I would have expected from my experiences. If it
>had been felt that people in their 70s (and particularly 80s+) with viral pneumonia would stand an appreciable chance of surviving with (but not without) ventilation, then I ought to have seen plenty of such
>patients in ICUs - but, as I've said, I virtually never did.
I don't have the relevant experience. But perhaps it's interesting to note that the report gives, as comparison, data from 2017-19 on patients with non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia, and there were lots of such patients (5,338) and they wouldn't have been subject to the sort of biases that I described for the COVID-19 patients. Of those patients, the morality rates were 9.9% for age 16-49, 23.4% for age 50-69, and 31.6% for age 70+. OK, nothing specific on those aged 80+, but you can tell from the IQR given in the report that quarter of all those non-COVID viral pneumonia patients were over 70. That sounds to me like quite a lot of patients over 70 in ICUs with viral pneumonia. A 31.6% mortality rate isn't wonderful, but it's a lot better than 70-80%.
Best wishes, Kevin
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