Old news. The virus has a completely different effect on the lungs than the classic pneumonia.
At first, the lungs are +- alright if somewhat damaged by Covid, but people are still hypoxic. The latest news from post-mortems in Germany and Switzerland is that the micro-circulation is all fucked in the alveoles, meaning that the oxygen is getting into the lungs, but isn't getting into the blood and you need to improve that instead of pumping in air that can't go into the blood anyway.
Russia is testing breathing really hot helium to try and unfuck the circulation. Others are trying NO gas. Other still are trying hyperbaric chambers.
We don't know if it works yet, but we do know that the ventilators don't really work in this first stage of the disease when your lung tissue isn't too far gone yet but the blood oxygen level is already really low.
Old news. The virus has a completely different effect on the lungs than the classic pneumonia.
At first, the lungs are +- alright if somewhat damaged by Covid, but people are still hypoxic. The latest news from post-mortems in Germany and Switzerland is that the micro-circulation is all fucked in the alveoles, meaning that the oxygen is getting into the lungs, but isn't getting into the blood and you need to improve that instead of pumping in air that can't go into the blood anyway.
Russia is testing breathing really hot helium to try and unfuck the circulation. Others are trying NO gas. Other still are trying hyperbaric chambers.
We don't know if it works yet, but we do know that the ventilators don't really work in this first stage of the disease when your lung tissue isn't too far gone yet but the blood oxygen level is already really low.