I haven't seen that 15% figure anywhere?
Not sure on the number but every hospital bed has an outlet. So if a O2 mask isnt sufficient then its just a matter of hooking up a tube.
It's mainly about how one measures it. If you're genuinely seeking impartial and scientifically minded analysis and not just to meme some jokes I made this thread for that. I have been ahead of this for a month.
So, if you just take the numbers being reported by the People's Republic of China (which I don't feel comfortable with but it's still the biggest picture we have) there are 37,362 active cases, of which 7,664 are critical condition. That's actually greater than 20% ICU admissions of the total of confirmed cases. However, most sources are now certain that Chinese definitions of confirmed cases are low-ball. They have changed the definition 6 times now.
If you look at the South Korean numbers you see very fast growing numbers of infected but far fewer ICU admissions. This, to me, indicates that most cases have not incubated to that point but that Seoul is just more honest and forward about how they track the spread while also actually tracking it more accurately and quickly. There are currently 2,891 active cases and only 7 are in the ICU.
The JAMA study out of China reported 81% of cases were mild and that a whopping 49% of critical cases were fatal.
Furthermore, that 81% (19% of cases being critical) number is very likely off. The number is likely much less worrisome because it is very likely that mild cases are in mostly not reported and therefore not confirmed. Total confirmed cases vs current ICU admissions indicates less than a 10% rate of critical cases but that's obviously a poor way to track this. The total confirmed case (including recovered) number vs the total confirmed fatalies indicates a fatality rate of 2.9%. Again, there are almost certainly more cases than have been confirmed so the CFR is likely less than that.
As I have been saying for a month, we need straight data before we can dismiss anything and we need to take this seriously. Most epidemiologists are saying that this virus certainly has the potential to kill tens of millions of people. It has a very high R0 (2.4-4) and a case fatality rate of at least 2% (a hundred times higher than flu) with a rate of ICU admission at least 10%. In regard to the R0, it may indeed be safe to accept the low end estimate of 2.4 because that actually comes from the cruise ship data. It's still alarmingly high and almost double the reproductive rate of the flu.
*edit* case fatality rate a hundred times higher than the flu where I said ten times higher