In critical cases, COVID-19 attacks the lungs and restricts breathing to the point where a patient needs a machine called a ventilator to stay alive. Faced with spikes in critical cases, physicians in Italy are already facing the reality of having to make life-and-death decisions about who gets a ventilator and who doesn't. Dr. Anand Kumar, a critical care physician in Winnipeg, said patients critically ill with COVID-19 need specialized ventilator care. Fowler says there's a range of survival rates when it comes to COVID-19 patients who have been put on a ventilator. "Four in 10 might not make it," said Fowler, based on early North American data of COVID-19 patients who have required ventilators.

Source: CBC News March 31, 2020 22:07 UTC