BBC World News interviewed a doctor tonight who said that yes, if you get transferred to ICU as a result of Covid-19, this usually means that you need assistance breathing, which usually entails some sort of CPAP or ventilator. Summarizing, the doctor said that while Johnson isn’t necessarily on a ventilator, it is, in his words, “likely”.
I heard a report that said he is currently breathing on his own, but is being given supplemental oxygen.
If he’s awake, he is probably not on a ventilator. They usually induce a coma for ventilator patients.
No, but it’s the most likely reason for a covid patient to end up in the ICU.
CPAPs aren’t ordinarily used in a hospital setting, especially with infectious patients, because they are not designed to contain any germs the patient exhales, and they can increase the force of that exhalation.
Maybe so, but I’m almost certain that this doctor specifically named CPAP. And Google searches for “covid-19 cpap” do turn up an awful lot of news articles indicating that CPAP machines are being used for Covid-19 patients. (For example, here’s one from The Guardian.)
When I was a candy-striper (1983-84), patients could still smoke in hospital rooms, and there were doctor/nurse lounges where smoking was allowed. But not on the ICU/CCU floor, because for pretty much everyone, oxygen was in use. So it got to be that anyone who needed oxygen went to ICU.
As I understand it, it had become such a standard thing to send anyone who needed oxygen (not including post-surgical patients getting it in recovery) to ICU, that it was still standard practice long after the whole hospital became non-smoking.
If this happened in a lot of hospitals, there still might be an impetus to send people who needed oxygen to ICU, and a lot of people with pre-existing conditions may come in ALREADY on oxygen.
Sorry. I didn’t realise I was making a political jab. My point was that from what little I know, Johnson is intelligent and articulate.
I never implied or asked if they are synonymous. I asked specifically about COVID-19 patients, whether the usual reason for being taken into ICU is because they need to be on a ventilator.
Sorry, wasn’t thinking.
Not to be morbid, but suppose he dies. His party names his successor. Do you suppose they could do the bit where the Queen invites this person and tells him to form a government in person? Seems to me that this could be done over the phone or by video chat.
According to The Guardian, Johnson already had oxygen available in the ward he was in, so it seems unlikely that he would have been transferred to ICU only to get oxygen. The article says that according to the WHO, most people in ICU require ventilation, and that 63% of people in England who are admitted to ICU get ventilated within 24 hours. It also states that people on ventilators are sedated but not unconscious.
At the end of the article, the doctor who I saw on BBC World News in quoted. He says that Johnson is currently on CPAP, not a ventilator. ISTR he also made this claim in the TV interview, whereupon the anchor corrected him that there is no confirmation of this from the PM’s office, and the doctor agreed that he was simply speculating. I’m not sure if The Guardian is taking the doctor’s words from his TV interview out of context, or if the newspaper subsequently interviewed the doctor, who had come into possession of new information about Johnson’s condition.
Sorry, sir – forgot where I was.
Moderating
I was assuming “total colostomy bag” was not intended as a compliment.
To the others, apologies noted.
Colibri
Quarantine Zone Moderator
Short answer: nobody seems to know.
No, I don’t think so. Oxygen may have been available in his ward, but if the amount needed increased significantly this would cause concern. Johnson is a VIP and would certainly be offered a higher level of care given concerns. That said, most ward nurses are not comfortable managing CPAP either. Even the use of non-invasive ventilation is a somewhat troubling sign.
Although there are many reasons to be in an ICU, for Covid ventilation is likely the top of a long list.
British ICU Doctor on the radio says the NHS moves patients to intensive care before they need a ventilator when their oxygen levels get a bit low because if you wait you will not be able to react in time. He says people can deteriorate very very quickly - from talking to their families and feeling relatively okay to dead in just three to four hours. He says that in the next 24 hours Boris will either be on a ventilator or become stable. If he has to go onto a ventilator then he will stand a 53% chance of survival.
I don’t think the Queen is going to be meeting in person with anyone outside carefully screened staff anytime soon. Including her own family other than Prince Philip.
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I read an article somewhere (BBC?) that said he was moved in case he needs a ventilator. Ergo, he’s not on one. It could just be an oversight by the author, but it seems evidence is leaning against him being on one.
Patients crash in busy ERs all the time. They get intubated, all the drugs and equipment should be close by and ready. Then they are attached to a ventilator and moved to the ICU when a bed is available.
The wards have oxygen. Intubation carts and equipment are generally brought from the emergency or the ICU if a patient crashes on the ward. This takes time. So if someone is getting worse and you are thinking you need to intubate, you either do it or transfer to a (step down) ICU or higher level of care. CPAP might allow one to avoid intubating and subsequent ventilation. But if they moved him, he got worse enough that they considered it. They are not going to take chances with a high profile patient.
I doubt we are alone in my hospital but, here, anybody with covid pneumonia who might normally receive BiPap is intubated. Full stop. There is simply too much potential aerosolization of the virus otherwise.
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The strange lead-up to Boris Johnson’s admission to hospital: Repeated denials of prime minister’s worsening condition now coming under scrutiny**