A critical-care physician told The Wall Street Journal that patients sick from the China-originated novel coronavirus last spring were put under "risky sedation" and placed on ventilators "[n]ot for the patients' benefit," but in an effort to potentially stop the virus from spreading to staff and other patients.

Other less risky methods of breathing support could potentially result in a patient "spray[ing] dangerous amounts of virus into the air," the physician argued.

"We were intubating sick patients very early — not for the patients' benefit, but in order to control the epidemic and to save other patients," said Dr. Theodore Iwashyna, a critical-care physician at University of Michigan and Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals in Ann Arbor. "That felt awful."

The shocking comment was picked up by the founder of Rational Guard and lockdown critic Justin Hart.