Health officials warn the public about ‘silent’ hypoxia with coronavirus
Written by Site Hub on April 30, 2020
This past week, Dr. Richard Levitan with Bellevue explained in an Op-Ed for The New York Times the insidious way in which SARS-CoV-2 seems to hide pneumonia symptoms from patients and doctors. Scans of emergency room patients who came into the hospital with other types of health issues, such as injuries from falls, revealed COVID-19 pneumonia infections. As doctors scanned more patients, they soon learned that most patients had it without even knowing that they were seriously ill.
With typical pneumonia, a person’s lungs fill with infectious fluids, the tissues stiffen and carbon dioxide builds up. They might feel like they can’t breathe and/or like they have a weight on their chest. They usually detect a problem with their lungs at an early point during the infection. Many of the emergency room patients from Bellevue felt relatively fine and breathed normally with a normal level of carbon dioxide release even though their lungs had visible infection and their oxygen levels were low. Patients who did come into the hospital for breathing issues were in a far-advanced, difficult-to-treat stage.
Given the silent nature of the hypoxia, which has also been called “happy hypoxia” since patients usually have a more pleasant-than-expected demeanor, Dr. Levitan and other health officials recommend that everyone own and use a pulse oximeter in addition to a thermometer to regularly check their health. An oximeter might be the only early hypoxia warning that a person receives while infected with this virus.
https://www.inquisitr.com/6012016/silent-hypoxia/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html
