Covid death rates dropped as doctors rejected ventilators

Death rates among seriously ill COVID-19 patients dropped sharply as doctors rejected the use of mechanical ventilators, analysis has found.

The chances of dying in an intensive care unit (ICU) went from 43% before the pandemic peaked to 34% in the period after.

In a report, the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre said that no new drugs nor changes to clinical guidelines were introduced in that period that could account for the improvement. However, the use of mechanical ventilators fell dramatically.

Before the peak in admissions on 1 April, 75.9% of COVID-19 patients were intubated within 24 hours of getting to an ICU, a proportion which fell to 44.1% after the peak.

Meanwhile, the proportion of ICU patients put on a ventilator at any point dropped 22 percentage points to 61% either side of the peak.

Researchers suggested this could have been a result of “informal learning” among networks of doctors that patients on ventilators were faring worse than expected.

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Source: The Telegraph, 3 September 2020