Ventilators might exacerbate lung damage

A ventilator and other hospital equipment is seen in an emergency field hospital to aid in the COVID-19 pandemic in New York’s Central Park on March 30.

Reports from emergency rooms in New York have caused some doctors to speculate that ventilators might exacerbate the lung damage in some patients. It has also led to suggestions that Bipap machines, which supply oxygen via a mask rather than through a tube inserted down the throat, could give patients a better chance of survival.

 “New York was reporting 80 per cent of people on ventilators were dying, in New Orleans the numbers were 60 per cent, it was doing better,” she said. This had given rise to “a lot of theories that have not been proved yet”, she added.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/coronavirus-eighty-per-cent-of-new-york-ventilator-patients-die/news-story/eae57124706b1201f915c3ca966ad5fb