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Why is there a furious row about the Government’s failure to secure more ventilators when the evidence is clear that ventilators are largely ineffective at treating COVID-19? According to this letter published in the Lancet, 86% of patients put on mechanical ventilation in a Wuhan hospital died. An earlier study put the figure at 97%. For patients facing certain death without ventilation, there's an argument for intubation, although it may just speed their demise when palliative care would be more appropriate. But for those not facing certain death, there's mounting evidence that mechanical ventilation does more harm than good. This is the kind of gotcha journalism that has seen the public’s estimation of my profession plummet during the crisis. Don't mean to single out the FT, by the way. Nearly all the papers have the story. The Telegraph leads with the shortcomings of the PCR test given to almost 100,000 NHS and social care workers and raises the possibility that some could have been given the green light to return to work when they were still infected, thanks to the high incidence of false negatives. Another risk is that those who tested positive – but didn't, in fact, have the virus – may now be going back to work, convinced they've developed immunity. (My 11 year-old son Charlie was tested ...
