
'All our ICU patients are in their 50s or younger' – frontline Welsh doctor - DanBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejlbCmRJMW4&feature=youtu.be
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DanBC
This is a 20 minute interview with an ICU doctor in Wales.

He talks about the pressures on intensive care, about the reduction in
capacity and how they'll have to overflow to other areas quite soon; he talks
about the difference in intensive care for covid-19 patients and other
patients (all staff are in full PPE all the time, which isn't normal, and the
covid-19 patients in ICU are more ill than other patients in ICU); he talks
about good morale in the circumstance.

He also talks about the unexpected impact on younger patients -- all their ICU
patients are in their 50s or younger, and do not have comormid conditions.

He speaks about the distress of people not being able to have visitors, and of
having to think about how family members can be with their loved ones as those
people die.

He talks about the mechanism of death, which includes respiratory failure,
multi-organ failure, but he says the main cause is myocarditis.

He speaks about his experience of having and recovering from covid-19.

It's a great interview and well worth watching.

The UK went into covid-19 with fewer doctors, nurses, beds, ICU beds, per
100,000 population than most other EU countries.

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klingonopera
> _" All our ICU patients are in their 50s or younger"_

I was expecting a Triage-scenario to be the cause of this, but since they're
not just yet at capacity, that can't be the case either.

How is this anomaly to be explained?

EDIT: Apparently, they are over-capacity, I was left under the impression,
they hadn't turned anyone away from ICU... nevertheless, I still don't
understand how that anomaly is possible... it's statistically very unlikely:
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8181359/Doctor-
retu...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8181359/Doctor-returns-work-
recovering-coronavirus-capacity-intensive-care-unit.html)

~~~
op03
13 patients is not a big anomaly.

Check the historic number for respiratory related illnesses and deaths for the
region and you will have context. Could be a lot of smokers .

~~~
klingonopera
Yeah, but for a virus that even more heavily affects older people, it's super
unlikely you'd get 13 under-60s and not a single over-60. It's like flipping a
coin and getting 13 times heads, possible, but super unlikely. And we're not
even talking about odds of 50:50, but 33:67 for young/old.

So, he got 13 times heads in a row? If yes, he's probably at the only hospital
in the world to have that kind of a luck.

EDIT: The odds for 13 times heads in a row, is about 0.01%. So, one in 10,000
hospitals... hm, ok, that does seem likely to occur more than once on a global
scale.

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op03
Agree we wouldn't be hearing about it if it wasn't odd.

Just saying subtract out what conditions/ages in normal times occupy those
beds and the odds will change.

But I am too lazy to do it - [https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Health-
and-Social-Car...](https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Health-and-Social-
Care/Births-Deaths-and-Conceptions/Deaths/Deaths-by-Cause)

[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales)

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wsc981
In The Netherlands around 90% of ICU patients are obese [0].

\---

[0]: [https://northerntimes.nl/umcg-investigates-possible-link-
bet...](https://northerntimes.nl/umcg-investigates-possible-link-between-
weight-and-covid-19-illness/)

