Thought I’d sit back and reflect on my week in the intensive care unit with coronavirus. I always find it interesting that a couple of you guys think of it as a hoax. It’s not a hoax, it is real, I see it and live it every day.
What is a hoax is the fear mongering used by the media and the constant vilification of Trump as those somehow he brought coronavirus to America.
I will tell you this. In ICU beds seven this week I had to intubate and put on life-support for coronavirus patients in that room this week. Now we don’t rotate the patients out of that room or just use that room for intubating. Three of the four patients that I put on life-support in that room died this week. They all died of coronavirus just so we’re clear.
Patient one was 78 years old and she had pre-existing comorbidities that included diabetes and hypertension. She developed renal failure and died within 48 hours of me putting her on the vent.
Patient number two was 62 years old but had severe COPD and coronary artery disease and heart failure as pre-existing conditions. He never should’ve been put on the ventilator because he was not gonna make it a matter what and he died within 14 hours of me spending three hours trying to stabilize him.
Patient number three was 42 years old. He had type two diabetes and he was pretty significantly overweight. But he was a juggernaut in the local community. He was beloved as a coach and a community organizer with his church and a youth league pastor and minister. He went from being OK to dying from coronavirus in 48 hours. He survived on the ventilator only an hour and coded almost immediately after intubation. I worked on him for an hour and could never get a sustain pulse back longer than five minutes.
And today in that same room I intubated A 71-year-old male with diabetes and hypertension and coronary artery disease and COPD. He had secondary pneumonia in addition to coronavirus and he’s stable on the ventilator for the moment.
In filling out the death certificate of the first three the primary cause of death was listed as coronavirus because it was the reason why they were in the hospital and the reason why they died. That’s not miss documentation, that’s not fudging anything to try and get more money for anybody, that’s how we classify these things. The primary cause of death is what admitted them in the hospital that week.
That said, obviously, you’ll notice the pattern there is the people that are dying are people with lots of medical problems that were probably going to die from something anyway within the next five years. The exception being the 42-year-old. Had he not gotten coronavirus he probably would’ve lived another 15 to 20 years given his current health status.
So I thought I would just give a couple of you guys and hear a little glimpse into the reality of coronavirus. It has certainly picked up in the last two months and the number of fatalities from coronavirus has picked up as well. Currently if I have to put you on the ventilator in our hospital for coronavirus you have a bout a 30% survival rate. That mirrors the national average. Thankfully very few people are sick enough from coronavirus to require being on the ventilator. The overall survival rate from catching this virus is 99% giver take a little bit. The survival rate for catching influenza by the way is 99.6%.
None of this, on a sidenote, is Donald Trump‘s fault. And the press constantly vilifying him for this is absurd. Without Donald Trump we would have no treatment and no vaccine. And whether you believe in it or don’t believe in it, that’s up to you and I don’t really care, because the vaccine is an amazing thing, was developed in an amazing period of time, and will save lives.
anyway, I thought some of y’all might enjoy a glimpse into the week in the life of a critical care doctor taking care of the most controversial virus of my lifetime
but not the deadliest virus of my lifetime.
What is a hoax is the fear mongering used by the media and the constant vilification of Trump as those somehow he brought coronavirus to America.
I will tell you this. In ICU beds seven this week I had to intubate and put on life-support for coronavirus patients in that room this week. Now we don’t rotate the patients out of that room or just use that room for intubating. Three of the four patients that I put on life-support in that room died this week. They all died of coronavirus just so we’re clear.
Patient one was 78 years old and she had pre-existing comorbidities that included diabetes and hypertension. She developed renal failure and died within 48 hours of me putting her on the vent.
Patient number two was 62 years old but had severe COPD and coronary artery disease and heart failure as pre-existing conditions. He never should’ve been put on the ventilator because he was not gonna make it a matter what and he died within 14 hours of me spending three hours trying to stabilize him.
Patient number three was 42 years old. He had type two diabetes and he was pretty significantly overweight. But he was a juggernaut in the local community. He was beloved as a coach and a community organizer with his church and a youth league pastor and minister. He went from being OK to dying from coronavirus in 48 hours. He survived on the ventilator only an hour and coded almost immediately after intubation. I worked on him for an hour and could never get a sustain pulse back longer than five minutes.
And today in that same room I intubated A 71-year-old male with diabetes and hypertension and coronary artery disease and COPD. He had secondary pneumonia in addition to coronavirus and he’s stable on the ventilator for the moment.
In filling out the death certificate of the first three the primary cause of death was listed as coronavirus because it was the reason why they were in the hospital and the reason why they died. That’s not miss documentation, that’s not fudging anything to try and get more money for anybody, that’s how we classify these things. The primary cause of death is what admitted them in the hospital that week.
That said, obviously, you’ll notice the pattern there is the people that are dying are people with lots of medical problems that were probably going to die from something anyway within the next five years. The exception being the 42-year-old. Had he not gotten coronavirus he probably would’ve lived another 15 to 20 years given his current health status.
So I thought I would just give a couple of you guys and hear a little glimpse into the reality of coronavirus. It has certainly picked up in the last two months and the number of fatalities from coronavirus has picked up as well. Currently if I have to put you on the ventilator in our hospital for coronavirus you have a bout a 30% survival rate. That mirrors the national average. Thankfully very few people are sick enough from coronavirus to require being on the ventilator. The overall survival rate from catching this virus is 99% giver take a little bit. The survival rate for catching influenza by the way is 99.6%.
None of this, on a sidenote, is Donald Trump‘s fault. And the press constantly vilifying him for this is absurd. Without Donald Trump we would have no treatment and no vaccine. And whether you believe in it or don’t believe in it, that’s up to you and I don’t really care, because the vaccine is an amazing thing, was developed in an amazing period of time, and will save lives.
anyway, I thought some of y’all might enjoy a glimpse into the week in the life of a critical care doctor taking care of the most controversial virus of my lifetime
but not the deadliest virus of my lifetime.
