The pulse oximeter is in high demand.

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Of the many things we need right now, perhaps at the top of the list is information. There is a big gap between what we want to know about coronaviruses. How long does it last, how to best treat it, how to avoid it, what to do if we feel sick, when do we go to the hospital, and what we actually do I know. The lack of information and a large flock of fear combine to make something that seems to teach you very appetizing how to survive the virus.

On Monday, the New York Times Written opinion From lung specialists on what makes the virus so dangerous, and what can be done to make it less. The author, Richard Levitan, left the relatively safe area of ​​New Hampshire to learn what he could do to fight the virus, treating patients for 10 days at the epicenter of an outbreak in New York City. In the meantime, his lung specialist’s brain noticed a strange thing: many patients with serious cases had eyes that doctors would expect, even if the lungs were compromised and oxygen levels decreased. I didn’t feel any pain.

As Levitan wrote:

The majority of the Covid pneumonia patients I met had a markedly low oxygen saturation during triage, which at first glance was incompatible with life, but they used cell phones on monitors. Respiratory rate was high, but oxygen levels were dangerously low, and despite apparent pneumonia on chest x-ray, there was relatively little apparent distress.

Levitan’s work outlines the horrifying consequences of a body lacking oxygen but not horrifying Feeling To be low on oxygen. He states that these patients are often relatively well treated and are not well treated. As a result, their lungs are more damaged, patients require more invasive and intensive care, and are often less likely to survive. This is scary to learn during a pandemic, where the general wisdom that anyone who can stay home as long as they can without overwhelming the hospital could spread it was widespread. Fortunately, Levitan also has potential remedies for this problem.

There are ways to identify and treat patients with Covid pneumonia faster and more effectively, without having to wait for a coronavirus test in a hospital or clinic. Early detection of silent hypoxia is required through a pulse oximeter, a popular medical device that can be purchased without a prescription at most pharmacies.

A pulse oximeter is a small device that can be clipped with your finger to read oxygen levels. (For most healthy people, waking up to oxygen levels of 94 to 100% is worrisome when doctors fall below 90%. Levitan is a New York hospital worried about COVID patients with oxygen levels as low as 50%. Probably the pulse oximeter could have been purchased without a prescription at most pharmacies when Levitan was making his work. But since its publication, finding them has become very difficult. sold out so most pharmacy When I checked it on Tuesday afternoon and on Amazon, what was actually being reviewed was sold out. (Those that have not been fully reviewed are probably not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. According to this research, Not worth your time. )

Disseminating information about how useful these devices are, for now, has disappeared from most people’s devices. Grasp.

Levitan’s work wasn’t the first time a pulse oximeter appeared to be useful to those who deal with COVID-19. Jessica Lustig, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times Magazine, mentioned her device Viral march essay About nursing her husband through illness at home. (She was “brought to me by a drugstore friend with the advice of a doctor.”) Bravo’s after recovering from COVID-19 Andy Cohen also recommended them in MarchAs an essential tool for those who worry about viruses. And Quartz was reported in early April, Interest in oximeters has been strong since the first case of coronavirus was reported in the US in January, and demand surged by more than 500% that week.

But Levitan’s work is more direct about its utility. He said that everyone with a cough and fever, whether or not they had a positive test, negative, Or not at all-you need to monitor yourself with these devices for 2 weeks. This recommendation added appeal, thanks to coming from a doctor, and more, from a lung specialist. It feels like nuts. After completing the work, Absent Given the availability of pulse oximeters as soon as possible, it seems likely that these tools may help to understand better ways to do triage in an overwhelmed hospital. Yet, with a cruel twist, Levitan has spread the word about how useful these devices are, and for the moment most people don’t understand.

I didn’t buy the pulse oximeter myself, so I thought that I should work hard to get a pulse oximeter. I also learned about the meaning of the rush to them. Is this another N95 mask situation? Will the public wave to the possible usefulness of some and keep them away from those who need them most? I emailed Levitan to ask and his reply reassured: “There is no competition between hospitals and home appliances. We are much more expensive and connect to heart monitors etc. I use a lot of different things, “he wrote to me. His further comments reveal that his advice is a long-term suggestion, not an immediate suggestion:

This pandemic will probably not go away this winter. Maybe we’ve been fighting for years. A pulse oximeter should be like a thermometer in your home. Valuable information to contact your doctor to make an assessment and a decision about your treatment needs.

This makes sense to me. The Levitan Times article does not intend to give specific advice on what to do with the information the oximeter will tell you. He has no readings on when to register an alarm or when to contact a doctor. Otherwise it is not. That’s because the doctor still needs to understand it. In other words, even with COVID-19 And Even if you are using a pulse oximeter, you should talk to your doctor about how to use it. So it’s still the doctor, not the pulse oximeter, that does this.

We also asked emergency physician and slate contributor Jeremy Faust about how he thought about the work and how to do it with a pulse oximeter. He said:

All medical devices provide information that is not so easy to interpret. Every time someone in the family wants to see the results of a routine blood test, this is known. They see and worry about all these “alerts” and outliers. But they are almost meaningless. The same is true for devices that measure our physiology. There are countless false alarms on all suspicious stories of smartwatches with abnormal heart rhythms, leading to unnecessary doctor visits to clinics and ERs.

The pulse oximeter may be a great tool for COVID-19. But only if you are diagnosed or if you really think you have it. Still, hypoxia measurements may or may not make sense.

In other words, as in many other cases, the possible role of the pulse oximeter is still unclear. How exactly doctors can use them to better serve their patients, and how they can help individuals use them at home. So if you’re using a pulse oximeter, that’s great. It doesn’t matter if you don’t come right now. Contacting a doctor when ill is still the first line of defense. In the next few years they will be household items. However, of An important tool that will ensure you get over this. That means, like everything else, we still understand it.