"The peak of the epidemic is coming, and it's coming ferociously." Breathing machines, seen as life-saving devices, are being snapped up around the world. In the supply and demand relationship is unusually tight, the price of ventilators also rose, even to a state of madness.
According to real-time statistics released by Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of 06:30 BST on April 2, there had been more than 930,000 confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia worldwide, totalling 932,605. Of these, a total of 213,372 cases were confirmed in the United States, making it the first country in the world to be diagnosed with more than 200,000, 4,757 deaths and 8,474 cases of rehabilitation. Compared with the previous day's data of 6:30 a.m., there were 27,107 new confirmed cases in the United States, with more than 20,000 new confirmed cases on the third consecutive day and 1,447 new deaths.
As overseas outbreaks have become increasingly serious, the price of life-saving ventilators has skyrocketed. "The price of a ventilator has gone up in the sky, and I think it's outrageous. On April 1st a medical device worker said.
Data models presented by the White House Outbreak Response Team show that new crown deaths in the United States could reach 100,000 to 240,000 under the conditionof intervention, and between 1.5 million and 2.2 million deaths if left unchecked.
Of these, the number of confirmed cases in New York State has reached 75,798, ranking first among the states. According to CCTV, New York State has ordered 17,000 ventilators from China for $25,000 (about Rmb180,000) each.
The price of ventilators has skyrocketed in the global rush to buy ventilators. Component shortage, labor costs and other factors to promote price increases, but the tight supply and demand relationship has become an important factor in the price of ventilators skyrocketing.
New York State has ordered 17,000 ventilators, each costing $25,000, from China, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference on March 31. But the state is expected to get only 2,500. The reason is that California, Illinois and the federal government have all ordered the same ventilators.
In particular, Mr. Cuomo accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency of snapping up ventilators to push up prices. "Fifty states competed to buy ventilators, and the federal government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency joined in, pushing up the price of ventilators. Cuomo said.
The peak of the new corona epidemic in the United States has not yet arrived, the severe patients need a severe shortage of ventilators, U.S. doctors have to step up preparations for the "who should use the ventilator, who should not use" this moral dilemma. To that end, hundreds of U.S. hospitals have adopted a patient rating system that helps doctors decide who to use the ventilator by rating patients.
The system was developed by Douglas White, a professor of critical care at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UMPC) in Pennsylvania, CNN reported on April 3. The system was introduced in an article published by White on March 27 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled "The Distribution of Respirators and Critical Hospital Beds during the New Coronavirus Pandemic".
The system rates patients according to the following two points: 1) by the severity of acute disease, to determine the patient's likelihood of survival to discharge, and 2) based on the existence of complications affecting the patient's survival, to determine the patient's long-term survival after discharge is how likely. The patient's score determines the priority of his or her in intensive care. Priorities are increased for people such as health care workers who are "critical to the completion of public health tasks."
For patients with the same rating, the system prioritizes the treatment of younger patients as a further consideration of the "life duration" that can be saved.
White's guidance framework ensures that no one has been disqualified from intensive care from the start. Dr. Truger of Harvard University recently wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Boston Globe to support White's guidance, arguing that it would help hospitals, doctors and the public prepare for the decisions that Dr. Trugg believes are about to face.
White believes that the expert's forward-looking is important. In this way, in the face of a pandemic, doctors don't have to struggle with these terrible ethical issues. He also argued that the triage committee should be created by non-front-line doctors to "enhance objectivity, avoid conflict and minimize moral suffering". Truger says that even with a framework like White's for ethical guidance, the future of American doctors is not smooth. "It is likely that in the next few days, doctors will have to make decisions that they have never considered before. For some, this mental blow will render them completely incapacitated. "
A ventilator can save people! You can kill people too! Having a ventilator doesn't save everyone! In my opinion, what needs to be saved is faith and courage!
