This transcript has been edited for clarity.
John Whyte, MD, MPH: Hello. I'm Dr John Whyte, chief medical officer at WebMD. Welcome to "Coronavirus in Context." Today we're going to talk about whether we're managing coronavirus correctly; do we need to think about a change in our treatment regiments? My guest is Dr Cameron Kyle-Sidell. He's a physician trained in emergency medicine and critical care, and he practices at Maimonides in Brooklyn, New York. Welcome, Dr Sidell.
Cameron Kyle-Sidell, MD: Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me.
Whyte: You've been talking a lot about the number of patients,
the percentage of patients dying on ventilators. When did you first notice this trend?
Kyle-Sidell: In preparation of opening what became a full COVID-positive intensive care unit, we scoured the data just to see what was out there — those who have experienced it before us, primarily the Chinese and the Italians; it was hard to find
exactly, like the rate of what we call successful extubation — meaning, someone was put on a ventilator and taken off. And that data are still hard to find. I imagine there are a lot of people still on ventilators. But from the data we have available, it appears to be somewhere between 50% and 90%. Most published data puts it around 70%. So, that's a very, very high percentage in general, when one thinks of a medical disease.
Whyte: You've been talking on social media; you say you've seen things that you've never seen before. What are some of those things that you're seeing?
Comment: Watch Dr. Kyle-Sidell's video below - he thinks that the ventilators may be causing lung damage because of pressure:
See also: