Shout it from the roof tops!!! Even as hospitals and governors raise the alarm about a shortage of ventilators, some critical care physicians are questioning the widespread use of the breathing machines for Covid-19 patients, saying that large numbers of patients could instead be treated with less intensive respiratory support.If the iconoclasts are right, putting coronavirus patients on ventilators could be of little benefit to many and even harmful to some.What’s driving this reassessment is a baffling observation about Covid-19: Many patients have blood oxygen levels so low they should be dead. But they’re not gasping for air, their hearts aren’t racing, and their brains show no signs of blinking off from lack of oxygen.That is making critical care physicians suspect that blood levels of oxygen, which for decades have driven decisions about breathing support for patients with pneumonia and acute respiratory distress, might be misleading them about how to care for those with Covid-19. In particular, more and more are concerned about the use of intubation and mechanical ventilators. They argue that more patients could receive simpler, noninvasive respiratory support, such as the breathing masks used in sleep apnea, at least to start with and maybe for the duration of the illness.

Virus May Spread Twice as Fast as Earlier Thought, Study Says

This is the problem with lock downs. It is not that they don’t work in the short term it is just that they can never end. Particularly if there is no vaccine and the virus is particularly virulent as the above link suggests. They remembered what happened two decades ago with SARS: People died, economies suffered. So they locked down their immigration hardest and soonest, deployed public health workers to follow up contacts of cases, got their hospitals shored up, and started publishing clear and consistent information and data. They flattened their curves before the rest of the world understood there would be curves to flatten. But in recent weeks, those curves have taken another chilling turn. The numbers of new cases in these places are creeping upward.

The same is true of all countries with a significant out break. New York’s Coronavirus Death Toll is Almost Certainly Far Higher Than Reported

Eyeing the long road to normality

CBS News Goes Full Fake but Accurate With Correction on Viral Crying Nurse Video

New Zealand, but it is going to spread if this don’t end. Coronavirus: Growers fear millions of fruit will rot on trees

For what it is worth…Hydroxychloroquine Update For April 6

Coronavirus: Can Japan’s ‘soft lockdown’ stop COVID-19?

In the interest of fairness, it remains to be seen if Sweden sticks to their guns. They have had a lot more deaths per capita then other Nordic countries and a lot more even then the US at this point. I still think they are doing it right for the long term, but it remains to be seen if they can stick to it. Has Sweden Found the Right Solution to the Coronavirus?

Germany’s coronavirus response: Separating fact from fiction

Shout it from the roof tops. Divergence of fortunes with nearby Lombardy stems from keeping more patients away from hospitals, experts say

REMEMBERING THE 1957 ASIAN FLU EPIDEMIC

Coronavirus: why the Nordics are our best bet for comparing strategies

China Thought It Had Beaten Coronavirus, But New And Asymptomatic Cases Are Cropping Up

How Misinformation About the U.S. Needing ‘1 Million Ventilators’ Spread