'Almost a death sentence': How Wisconsin doctors, peers are rethinking ventilators for coronavirus

[TexasTowelie]

COVID-19 patients experience many symptoms: Fever, chills, muscle pain, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, cough. But one of the biggest concerns for Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer at UW Health, is shortness of breath.

“If you’re going to get in trouble with COVID-19, it’s going to be based on your inability to breathe,” Pothof said.

For some COVID-19 patients, the disease can look like Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or ARDS, a life-threatening condition in which fluid builds up in the lungs. Mechanical ventilators offer one way to treat those symptoms, and some hospitals have used them often as COVID-19’s epicenter shifted from China to Europe to the United States.

Pothof is among experts who say the jury is still out about how effectively ventilators treat COVID-19, particularly for patients with less severe symptoms.

Read more: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/health-med-fit/almost-a-death-sentence-how-wisconsin-doctors-peers-are-rethinking-ventilators-for-coronavirus/article_adfc823e-d86d-5619-8ebd-75bb34fdde97.html

[AllyCat]

1. After we were all told to stay away.

Our hospitals seem to have capacity to take patients with less severe illness. Glad we flattened that curve but with Wisconsin Covidiots trying to reopen the state, I am worried for a failure on this game plan.

[ewagner]

2. Agree...

I am seeing fewer, not more, people with masks in stores...

I get strange looks when I walk into a convenience store with a mask....

clerks at quick trip no longer sensitizes counters etc

[Chainfire]

3. Haven't you got the word?

This thing is about over........

[modrepub]

4. It's Important For The Medical Community To Operator Free of Interference

Unfortunately, the best way to develop knowledge about COVID-19 is to treat the disease and track what treatment regimens may be keeping people alive and more unfortunately, what treatments don't appear to be working. I'm much more concerned that the medical community is being overwhelmed with garbage coming out of the political arena from people who have absolutely no clue what's going on.

One of my favorite saying alludes to this predicament: “Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but it makes the fool vastly more dangerous.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb

[dragonlady]

5. Another way of saying

a little learning is a dangerous thing. Very true.