The question is, “How many patients once intubated are extubated?” From what it sounds like once they are that sick they don’t come back. If that’s the case we don’t need ventilators at all. It’s a terrible thing to contemplate but in a melt down, if it fails every time why expose the staff. You simply have to start thinking about the staff.
I don’t know the percentages, but i’ve seen news stories that mention COVID-19 patients who have been taken off of ventilators. I’ve also seen stories that mention something called the Lung Safe study(not specific to COVID-19) which found that patients who had ARDS have a 30% chance of dying in the next 30 days after being taken off of a ventilator.
The 30% was in hospital mortality.
There seems to be a move to make that policy. If a patient on a ventilator has a poor prognosis for ever recovering, it's DNR and perhaps termination.
The NYC lawyer who started it there was extubated successfully after about 10 days.
I can find the article if you want.
He was in the ‘young and will likely live’ demographic still, at 50yrs old thereabouts.
One in seven Wuhan Virus victims who is intubated is extubated, i.e., lives. Those are the figures from New Orleans and China, though the New Orleans ER doctor who reported results there also said that the success rate for extubation was 30% in Seattle.