Pulse ox is the quickest and most non invasive way to check. In the hospital, especially in ICU, they will have blood gases drawn. There is much more to oxygenation than saturation levels. It's a complicated process that relies on chemistry, so you need a much more complete picture when you are treating a patient who is very sick, and especially those who are ventilated. If your sats are ok via pulse ox, you are most likely fine.
More testing is really important. I hope that we start to see that come online soon. It would most definitely help with the anxiety the general public feels...there are so many cases just like you. People wonder if they have it, have had it, have some immunity to it, etc. Those questions are important, and need to be answered if we want to drive the most efficient public health response.
If anything good is to come of this, hopefully it's to beef up our public health preparedness. As the discussion around where the virus originated, and whether it's a natural mutation or man made, becomes more main stream, I think you will start to see more broad based support for that. Even if it was a natural deviation that caused it to jump from animal to human, it does raise the specter of biologic warfare, and how devastating that could actually be. That's a whole different conversation, though. I'll leave that to people more versed than I in the subject.
Stay well, Kirk! I do worry about you since you are in one of the more affected areas of the country.
Best,
Kim |
