A very smart New York doctor, Richard Levitan, discovered something about coronavirus that has me thinking, there may be a simple and effective way to fight our way out of not just the health but also the economic misery COVID-19 is wreaking on the world. Kossak xaxnar wrote at length about the doctor’s discovery, as a potential breakthrough for treatment, here.
In a nutshell, in the early stages of the disease, the virus attacks the lungs, preventing the patient from taking in oxygen. However, unlike other respiratory illness like the flu, the patient is still able to breathe out carbon dioxide. Because it is the buildup of carbon dioxide in the body, not loss of oxygen, that triggers the feeling of breathlessness, the patient is unaware s/he is infected. Doctor Levitan calls this phenomenon “silent hypoxia.”
There is a simple and inexpensive device that measures oxygen levels in the blood, an oximeter. You stick your finger in it, and it quickly gives you a reading. It’s cheap and requires no prescription. You can buy it online for around fifty bucks, more or less.
Now, couldn’t that be a game changer for reopening the economy?
The most devastating aspect of the virus is its ability to spread rapidly, and that occurs largely because patients are infectious for days before they know they are sick. Put a person with an oximeter at the entrance of every store and restaurant, every subway and bus, every airport, every office—doesn’t that make it possible to identify and turn away the likely infected?
Give an oximeter to every household in America; responsible citizens will self-quarantine when they see the warning signs of hypoxia. As well, having an oximeter at home can relieve much of the anxiety that would otherwise prevent workers and customers from reentering commerce when restrictions are lifted. We’ll have the comfort of knowing we can detect the disease early if we catch it, so as not to risk infecting family and friends, and so as to get medical treatment early enough to be effective.
I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts, including any cold water that needs throwing on this idea. I’m certainly no health expert. But if I’m right, let’s push our governments to ramp up production, purchase and distribution of this potential life-and-economy saving device, asap.