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Home Front: Politix
New York's Ventilator Rationing Plan
2020-03-25
[RealClearPolitics] Coronavirus is causing working-age people to worry about missing paychecks, caring for kids home from school, stockpiling groceries and canceling plans. But people in their 50s, 60s or older have bigger worries. Many are lying awake wondering if this is how they're going to die.

At its most severe, coronavirus attacks the lungs, making it impossible to breathe without a ventilator. Landing in the hospital on a ventilator is bad. But worse is being told you can't have one. After learning that the state's stockpile of medical equipment had 16,000 fewer ventilators than New Yorkers would need in a severe pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to a fork in the road in 2015. He could have chosen to buy more ventilators. Instead, he asked his health commissioner, Howard Zucker to assemble a task force and draft rules for rationing the ventilators they already had.

That task force came up with rules that will be imposed when ventilators run short. Patients assigned a red code will have the highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst) depending on a "triage officer's" decision. In truth, a death officer. Let's not sugarcoat it. It won't be up to your own doctor.
Posted by:Beavis

#2  It seems the Indian Government has ordered the development of ICU ventilators "on a war footing". The Indian Defense Research Agency is repurposing flow sensors and pumps used in aerospace applications to ventilator use. Both large public sector and private companies being roped in.
Posted by: John Frum   2020-03-25 13:32  

#1  depending on a "triage officer's" decision.

Paging Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin to the Death Panel.
Posted by: AlanC   2020-03-25 09:10  

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