New York COVID-19 Patients Placed In Ventilator Rarely Survive, Per Study

Most of the intubated COVID-19 patients in New York’s largest health system don’t survive according to the latest analysis. This means that once a patient is transferred to the ICU and placed on a ventilator, there is little chance that he or she will make it.

In the study that was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Network), experts checked the health records of 5,700 patients who were hospitalized between March 1 and April 4 at Northwell Health that has 12 hospitals across New York City, Westchester County and Long Island. It was discovered that in 2,634 COVID-19 patients, roughly 21 percent of them have died.

320 patients were placed on ventilators and 88 percent of them lost their battle against the disease. This shows that nine in every 10 ventilated patients have died. It was also revealed that most of those who did not make it have underlying health issues and the most common comorbidities include obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.

The records showed that the doctors’ overview of the coronavirus infection is correct. From the start, they have been saying that patients with an underlying condition will be severely ill compared to those who are healthy prior to contracting the infection.

“Of the patients who died, those with diabetes were more likely to have received invasive mechanical ventilation or care in the ICU compared with those who did not have diabetes,” researchers stated. “The percentage of patients who developed acute kidney injury was increased in the subgroups with diabetes compared with subgroups without those conditions.”

The new findings are critical as they provided doctors with a crucial understanding with regards to the early response of the frontliners. With additional knowledge, they now have more ideas on how they should deal with COVID-19 patients with or without existing illnesses.

“This is a very serious disease with a very poor outcome for those who have severe infections from it,” Time quoted Karina Davidson, research author and senior vice president at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, as saying. “We want patients with serious chronic disease to take a special precaution and to seek medical attention early, should they start showing signs and symptoms of being infected.”

Lastly, the research also exposed the possibility that ventilators may sometimes be harmful rather than helpful to some patients with severe coronavirus infection. Doctors said that some patients on ventilators are deteriorating very quickly so they avoid using the machine as much as possible.