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that’s how my sister died in late january 2020.
She couldn’t get rid of Carbon Dioxide.
I always wondered if she had COVID before anyone knew much about it.
She donated her body to science so we’ll never know.

I’m sorry about your sister. Did she have asthma by any chance?

Petey

so very sorry for the loss of your sister....I lost a brother....

I worked almost the entirety of 2020 in ICUs. We used so many ventilators that all elective surgeries were canceled or postponed in order that we could utilize the Anesthesia Ventilators. the Operating Rooms were for all practical purposes shut down. I had never seen that done before. Ordinarily you might have 8-10 ventilators going in the larger ICUs, but a year ago we had more than 30 at a time. Most of them who were ventilated perished.

It was very rare in my experience to see a ventilated Patient recover. I have seen all sorts of conditions. One Patient was 24 years old with a history of interstitial lung disease. She was eventually put on ECMO (a radical therapy) but she died in a day or so. Most patients were considerably older.

The problems with ventilating these people was that it seemed that every case was unique. Each person with a medical history seemed to respond. differently. There were people with hypertension, overweight, COPD, Cardiac, everything under the Sun. This obliged us to monitor them carefully. There was constant tweaking of the settings, back and forth.

I am of the opinion that some people are just susceptible to this virus, while the vast majority are not. There seems to be no universal solution. It is very challenging.