I'm not providing an answer in this post. I don't have one. But, since there is a big data point that is contrary to default conventional wisdom, I put it out there.
I also note that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The problem with sticking to "evidence based medicine" is that you need to make decisions on myriad matters in health care before you have evidence to give you a definitive answer regarding what measures work best.
I also note that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The problem with sticking to "evidence based medicine" is that you need to make decisions on myriad matters in health care before you have evidence to give you a definitive answer regarding what measures work best.
Do we have evidence that hospitalization of COVID19 patients is actually saving significant numbers of lives?
I’ve now seen multiple studies suggesting that up to 80 or 90 percent of patients who end up on ventilators ultimately die. At this point, I guess there’s no way to know if the other 10 percent would have lived without the ventilators. From what I can tell, most other hospitalized patients are getting supplemental oxygen, IV fluids and antibiotics. I have not seen any evidence on the effectiveness of these treatments. Many of those patients live, but we don’t know whether they would have recovered without hospitalization. It would obviously be impossible to do a RCT on that at the moment.From Marginal Revolution.
From personal experience working with Covid-19 patients, the problem we are seeing is secondary infection with bacteria. Classic pneumonia. Not sure if the antibiotics are helping yet, but given the similarity to other viral resp disease progression, they should be.
ReplyDeleteand local governments over whether religious gatherings should be allowed while the coronavirus outbreak rages on.
ReplyDeleteThis week, a pastor in Tampa, Florida, was arrested after violating a county edict restricting gatherings. Two days later, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, issued a statewide "safer at home" order that designated attending religious services as an essential activity, superseding the county order.https://www.yahoo.com/gma/constitutional-questions-murky-churches-continue-defy-restrictions-gatherings-090636268--abc-news-topstories.html