https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/14/coronavirus-why-everyone-needs-to-talk-about-advanced-directives/

One of the haunting realities of the COVID-19 pandemic is that people are suffering and dying alone in intensive-care units. They might need ventilators or other machines to keep them alive, and they have no loved ones holding their hands, offering love and support and helping to convey their wishes to doctors.

Unfortunately, as a 2017 Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist survey found, most people have not set down their wishes for such scenarios in documents known as advance directives. And this is adding to the uncertainty in emergency rooms overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, say experts in geriatrics and palliative care.