If you are 60+ in Italy & are really sick ...
Before, I posted about being 80+ & being sick in Italy and how the doctors may let you die.
There are two things keeping a really sick (e.g. critical) patient alive with COVID-19: (a) ventilator and (b) ICU bed.
The sad news is there is not enough ICU beds or ventilators and we know this to be true in Italy. Now, I read the cut off age is now 60 in (Northern) Italy.
Really, incredibly sad first paragraph: “Israeli medical doctor Gai Peleg told Israeli television that in northern Italy the orders are not to allow those over 60 access to respiratory machines.“
...
“ Peleg said that, from what he sees and hears in the hospital, the instructions are not to offer access to artificial respiratory machines to patients over 60 as such machines are limited in number.”
Source: http://www.jpost.com/International/I...over-60-621856
In 2019, WHO ranked Italy has having the second best health care system:
“In 2019, Italy's healthcare system was regarded, by World Health Organization's ranking, as the 2nd best in the world after France, and according to the World Health Organization, Italy has the world's 6th highest life expectancy.“
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Italy
Two important things to take away from this:
A) law of unintended consequences: having a lot of old people in your country leads to high death rates during COVID-19
B) related to (A) above, the bottlenecks to saving really sick COVID-19 patients are ventilators & ICU beds and now the situation is so bad in (Northern) Italy, if you over 60, the doctors will let you die.
Most of us should have seen this coming; it is not a surprise to see this when you have limited resources and need to maximize the survivor rate of sick patients. 2nd best healthcare system in the world was no match for COVID-19.
What is the most likely outcome in Italy: expect more deaths as the bottlenecks resources limit who can be saved until the infections peak. The bad news is infections have not peaked.
