It seems clear (from real-life narratives) that there are a lot of people, mostly elderly with pre-existing conditions, who are not going to survive even if they got onto life support much earlier. I suspect that in Norway, even given the small sample, they are making more rational clinical décisions in that respect.

This may change if an effective treatment turns up.


_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

UPDATE #COVID19
🇪🇺 Europe, April 3rd
This chart shows the patients currently on intensive care per 100 000 inhabitants.
- 🇩🇪 Germany has been added to this chart. As Germany is accepting patients from FR, NL and IT, they have passed both Portugal and Austria in previous days. pic.twitter.com/amzbdFhyl1

— GHoeberX (@ghoeberx) April 3, 2020

SUNY Downstate Medical Center, in Brooklyn ...The ICU, which typically has 10 beds, has expanded into four additional units.
[...]
Northwell Health System, which operates 23 hospitals in New York, was up to 3,000 COVID patients as of Friday morning, from 1,800 or so a week ago. Already, 500 are on ventilators.
[...]
Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn's Borough Park neighborhood, Dr. Patrick Borgen said the hospital's anticipating needing 400 ICU beds. As of Tuesday, it had 150.
[...]
On Friday, [Cuomo] signed an executive order empowering the National Guard to take ventilators and other protective equipment from private [!] hospitals and other companies and give them to hospitals in need.
[...]
At SUNY Downstate, Daniel said, she's intubating patients at the rate of one per hour. Amid the pandemic, she might do eight [!] in a shift, up from one or two.

Now, instead of progressing quickly to ventilators, doctors at Maimonides are relying more on high-flow oxygen therapy, with the hope that by keeping patients breathing on their own ["spontaneous respiration"] and able to move, they might be able to keep their lungs functioning better.

Story further glosses release criteria/orders, ie. self-admin of respiratory Rx, rehabilitation