Overall, about 20% of Covid-19 patients treated at Northwell Health died, and 88% of those placed on ventilators died, according to the study. A ventilator is a device that forces air into the lungs of patients who cannot breathe on their own because of severe pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome.
**(CNN)**Nearly all coronavirus patients who needed ventilators in New York's largest health system to help them breathe died, a study found.
Overall, about 20% of Covid-19 patients treated at Northwell Health died, and 88% of those placed on ventilators died, according to the study. A ventilator is a device that forces air into the lungs of patients who cannot breathe on their own because of severe pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Other, smaller reports have indicated that patients who need ventilation are unlikely to survive.
Just 12% of the patients in the study needed ventilators, Dr. Safiya Richardson at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Northwell Health, and colleagues found.
But this study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows how dire the outlook is for patients with severe Covid-19 disease.
