The hiss of oxygen soon fills the Queens apartment, as a paramedic leans down to help the elderly woman who is struggling to keep the mask on her face.The woman looks ghostly pale and is barely conscious, but there is some better news once the paramedics measure her blood oxygen levels.
She is taken to hospital. Paramedics will likely never learn whether she survived or not. Within minutes they will be called onto the next job. While so little is currently understood about COVID-19, paramedics, nurses and doctors are observing it up close, learning its character and complications. One of the riddles to emerge from the medical front line is the precipitous drop in so many patients' oxygen levels. Health workers are alarmed by their patients' instability.
For EMTs like Megan, the last few weeks have seen the manual virtually rewritten as to what constitutes a grim reading on their"pulse ox" — a tool which attaches to a patient's finger to measure the oxygen level in their blood. Paramedics say before COVID-19, a pulse ox in the low 90s might have sent them rushing to provide oxygen, or even preparing to intubate a patient.
Puzzlingly, many patients presenting with extremely low blood oxygen levels don't appear as critically ill as health workers might normally expect.
Fake news. Switch it off people. MSMIsTheVirus
realDonaldTrump the wealthiest country in the world and look at the quality of PPE for the workers, it looks like gear your Pop would wear sanding back an old dresser on the lawn on a Sunday afternoon InsidersABC 4corners ScottMorrisonMP
That'd happen if you followed a paramedic you clowns. Follow a primary school teacher and see how much death you encounter. theirABC
*Cough* bullshit *cough*
No it's not everywhere. It's not here.
realDonaldTrump TrumpOwnsEveryDeath