At 18:21 20/03/2020, John Whittington wrote:
>With the UK government and its advisors seemingly 'majoring' on the
>need to try to avoid overwhelming the UK's ICU
>resources/capabilities, does anyone know where there is any data
>(from anywhere in the world but, of course, ideally the UK) on the
>age distribution of patients with Covid-19 infection being admitted
>to ICUs, and the survival rate (ideally broken down by age) of those
>who are treated in ICUs?
I'd still be very interested in knowing if any of the statistics I
mentioned are available everywhere. To expand upon the reason for my
interest, in case it's not obvious ....
As above, UK efforts (and political/media/public interest) seem now
to be focused on trying to avoid the UK's ICU/ventilation facilities
being overwhelmed, and the implication seems to be that there is an
expectation that everyone who becomes ill enough with Covid-19
infection that they will probably die without intensive care
(probably including ventilation) should be provided with that intensive care.
Under 'normal circumstances' (i.e. without Covid-19), around 30,000
people per year die of pneumonia in the UK, most of whom are elderly
- about 95% above 65 and about 50% above 84. In a significant
proportion of cases the pneumonia will just be a terminal event in
someone with an underlying fatal disease (particularly cancer), such
that aggressive treatment of the pneumonia is unlikely to be
considered appropriate. However, there will be a substantial
proportion of the cases/deaths for which that is not the case, yet
(although I'd be happy to be told otherwise) I very much doubt that
many of the elderly patients in question will ever have got anywhere
near an ICU of ventilator prior to their death.
I am therefore wondering whether the expectation is that an elderly
patient with Covid-19 pneumonia should be much more likely to receive
aggressive treatment than would have been the case a few months ago
for a patient of the same age suffering from an equally serious viral
pneumonia, but due to something other than Covid-19?
Hence, is it possible that the politicians/public/media simply do not
understand what the 'normal' situation is?
Kind Regards,
John
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