2020 Year in Review: Shared Ventilation for COVID-19

COVID-19 resulting from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in a pandemic of respiratory failure previously unencountered. Early in the pandemic, concentrated infections in high-density population cities threatened to overwhelm health systems, and ventilator shortages were predicted. An early proposed solution was the use of shared ventilation, or the use of a single ventilator to support >= 2 patients. Spurred by ill-conceived social media posts, the idea spread in the lay press. Prior to 2020, there were 7 publications on this topic. A year later, more than 40 publications have addressed the technical details for shared ventilation, clinical experience with shared ventilation, as well as the numerous limitations and ethics of the technique. This is a review of the literature regarding shared ventilation from peer-reviewed articles published in 2020.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in interest in the concept of shared ventilation, with more than 40 publications in 2020 alone discussing the technical details, clinical experiences, limitations, and ethics of this technique. This topic, previously underexplored, has garnered significant attention and research focus during the ongoing public health crisis.