The real risks of reopening the city
L’actualité’s Alain Vadeboncœur ponders the possible risks of reopening Montreal’s businesses and other activities starting next Monday. Vadeboncœur is also a doctor, head of emergency at the Institut de cardiologie de Montréal.
Aaron Derfel reports that at St Mary’s Hospital, one out of five ER patients ends up testing positive. Derfel doesn’t explicitly state this, but this seems to be among everyone presenting at the ER, people there for other reasons – not only those with typical Covid symptoms.
JaneyB 09:44 on 2020-05-22 Permalink
The large number of ER patients testing positive even when they came in for other things has been noticed in other ERs, notably in NYC. A respiratory specialist/ER doc (Richard Levitan), working in NYC, noted that people functioning with stunningly low oxygen saturation rates seemed to be a surprise crazy feature of covid and is flying basically undetected until its acute phase when people can barely breathe. People are coming in for normal ER things, get routinely tested and are found positive. In his hospital, they found that most of the regular ER type arrivers were covid-positive. He wrote a fascinating article on this in NYT (paywalled, clear your cache). He has also done video pieces for CBS etc. He was talking about this a month ago, btw.
GC 10:53 on 2020-05-22 Permalink
Is this the one, JaneyB? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html
It is an interesting read. I think one of the scary things about it is how quickly people go from showing symptoms to dying. That article helps maybe explain a bit why that happens.
Alison Cummins 18:51 on 2020-05-22 Permalink
When I read that article in April — or maybe a similar one — I ordered pulse oximeters for us and for my father. Still on backorder.
They are a made-in-china product and China needs them all for themselves.
JaneyB 11:29 on 2020-05-23 Permalink
@GC – yup. That’s the one. I’m following Levitan’s twitter feed now.
@Alison – I found a pulse oximeter on ebay.ca, based in Texas. Made in China, like all things. It came in 3 wks instead of the normal 4-6 from China. Ebay is full of China listings. They are widely available. Amazon.ca, on the other hand has messy/flaky sellers (tried that first). There are also some apps for iPhone, fitbit, Samsung; most are iffy but there’s one out that seems reliable. I can’t remember where I read it though plus I have too-old tech.
The Jewish General is involved in piloting another tech tool that would be a great asset for telehealth services in general. Don’t know if it’s here yet. Derfel’s link: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/jewish-general-set-to-roll-out-game-changing-app-in-coronavirus-battle/