VENTILATORS ARE NOT MAGIC LIFESAVERS: “Most coronavirus patients who end up on ventilators go on to die, according to several small studies from the U.S., China and Europe. And many of the patients who continue to live can’t be taken off the mechanical breathing machines.”

Coronavirus aside, people who get put on ventilators are already sick, and ventilators carry their own, serious risks. Plus, “weaning” people off of them is non-trivial. Not getting a ventilator at a crucial time will kill you, but getting one is no guarantee of survival. If you put totally healthy people on ventilators for a week, a nontrivial number of them would wind up dying, and we don’t put totally healthy people on ventilators.