On Tuesday night I saw a fascinating segment on All In with Chris Hayes. Chris was interviewing Dr. Richard Levitan, the author of this New York Times Opinion piece, The Infection That’s Silently Killing Coronavirus Patients: This is what I learned during 10 days of treating Covid pneumonia at Bellevue Hospital. www.nytimes.com/…
I couldn’t find the link to the interview but the sobering article is worth a read in its entirety. One thing jumped out at me from the interview and again when I read the article is I can’t believe this isn’t huge national news. Blood oxygen finger monitors are highly effective tools in helping to both screen people who may not realize they have COVID19 and test people who have mild symptoms of COVID19 and don’t realize how serious their illness is progressing until it’s too late.
And here is what really surprised us: These patients did not report any sensation of breathing problems, even though their chest X-rays showed diffuse pneumonia and their oxygen was below normal. How could this be?
We are just beginning to recognize that Covid pneumonia initially causes a form of oxygen deprivation we call “silent hypoxia” — “silent” because of its insidious, hard-to-detect nature.
www.nytimes.com/...
Dr. Richard Levitan observed that since many patients have COVID-19 pneumonia but have not complained of breathing problems, they are not aware that something is slowly attacking their lungs. The infection is causing something called "silent hypoxia," a form of oxygen deprivation that is difficult to detect. In the Chris Hayes interview he said it was unlike anything he has ever seen before. That people are expelling the CO2 so they are not experiencing the discomfort of oxygen deprivation until they are in really serious trouble.
From another article about Dr Levitan’s article in EcoWatch: www.ecowatch.com/...
"But when COVID pneumonia first strikes, patients don't feel short of breath, even as their oxygen levels fall," Levitan wrote. "And by the time they do, they have alarmingly low oxygen levels and moderate-to-severe pneumonia (as seen on chest X-rays). Normal oxygen saturation for most persons at sea level is 94 percent to 100 percent; COVID pneumonia patients I saw had oxygen saturations as low as 50 percent."
WHY ISN’T THIS NATIONAL NEWS GOING VIRAL?
Seriously. I don’t want to break copyright rules and post too much of his article directly but blood oxygen readers are very simple to use, are widely available and are very inexpensive. You can order one online for $25 — $100. Anyone who has COVID19 and is self isolating at home should have a blood oxygen monitor to check on their readings to watch for silent symptoms that their lungs are going into distress.
“All persons with cough, fatigue and fevers should also have pulse oximeter monitoring even if they have not had virus testing, or even if their swab test was negative, because those tests are only about 70 percent accurate. A vast majority of Americans who have been exposed to the virus don’t know it.”
www.nytimes.com/...
Testing facilities, doctors offices, hospitals, urgent care, EMS teams, first responders, nursing homes, essential businesses, etc … all should immediately start using blood oxygen monitors to screen everyone. It’s fast and cheap. It only requires a wipe to disinfect each person’s finger and they can test numerous people very quickly with the same device. Anyone with a blood oxygen less than 95% should be red flagged and sent for fast-tracked COVID19 testing.
Essential businesses could set up blood oxygen monitoring stations for anyone entering their business as well as for all employees. Every day all employees and customers are tested before entering. Anyone with blood oxygen level below 95% is red-flagged, not allowed to enter and gets directed to the closest COVID19 testing facility for fast-tracked COVID testing.
We have a national shortage and crisis with testing. Also, any test is only a snapshot in time. You can test negative on Monday and contract the virus on Tuesday. We need affordable, repeatable testing and blood oxygen monitors are another tool in our tool belt to screen people and identify “silent spreaders”. Blood oxygen monitors need to be leveraged nationwide as fast as humanly possible.
PS — Dr. Levitan also wrote about the critical importance of COVID19 patients laying on their side or on their stomachs to help their lungs. People in respiratory failure laying on their backs for too long further hampered their lung function.