Well, according to the BBC he's sitting up in bed but he's now on day 12 or 13 which is the critical phase of Covid-19 infection... For the curious the Lancet provides this flow diagram ...
...of the various possible "paths to death" (or not). The BBC are very quick to say that he's not on ventilation but it sounds most likely he's having non-invasive ventilation via a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine)...
...these are usually used for people who suffer from sleep apnea and can be nasal or full face... but he doesn't yet need mechanical ventilation ... the most extreme type of which is ECMO (ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) which looks like this...
...in between the above and the bottom diagrams are various other types of less invasive ventilation techniques that can be deployed. The next couple of days will be the most crucial ... he will either turn the corner naturally or end up on more invasive ventilation.
But even if Boris does not end up at this extreme end of the invasive ventilation scale... which is usually the province of premature babies and the people possibly nearing the end of their life ... the road to recovery to quote the man himself "is hard" (see the Guardian) ... so should we perhaps be preparing for him to stand down sooner rather than later...?
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that when the media says Boris is "receiving oxygen but
does not require ventilator" ...this is slightly deceptive language ... if you're receiving oxygen you're being ventilated by definition. It's just not highly invasive ECMO ventilation requiring sedation.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Unsolicited email from the BBC
Dear Mr Miller Please find the results of an investigation by the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit into editorial complaints about ...
Least ignored nonsense this month...
-
Just when you think things couldn't get more bonkers down Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has jumped the shark and launched an unprovoked m...
-
Well, we all knew that the United States was going to take illegal unilateral action against Iran didn't we? Top hint was when Sir Jo...
-
Shopping in Sainsbury's these days is not far off visiting a police station. Before you even look at the shelves a giant TV Screen an...
-
I always admired Norman Tebbit for his column in the Telegraph. They obviously bunged him well for it but he put in so much more effort tha...
-
Finally got round to watching Oppenheimer. Now I'm no great feminist but... Oh dear ... Someone obviously said to Christopher Nolan...
-
Someone you vaguely know and trust from the TV said something that was so important it had to be removed from the internet because it neve...
-
As the Master used to say in Doctor Who "for a lie to work it must be shrouded in truth". Therefore Jordan Peterson uses his ac...
-
The grand old Duke of York He had 10000 women Some were above our age of consent But in the US it is higher so then There legally a nonc...
-
Apparently Dame Maureen Diane Lipman DBE says there's so much cancel culture everybody is too afraid to criticise the establishment anym...
-
It always makes me laugh when people cite the Suffragettes as an example of non-violent direct action. They literally invented the letter bo...
No comments:
Post a Comment