Medical assistance is ‘supportive’ This means: If you come to hospital, we give you oxygen. Initially through nasal prongs, then progressively through mask and

Medical assistance is ‘supportive’ This means: If you come to hospital, we give you oxygen. Initially through nasal prongs, then progressively through mask and then straight to intubation - ventilator. If the lungs are completely unable to oxygenate, we will put you on ECMO which can work quite well whilst the lungs recover.... unfortunately not many of them. We will also take bloods and give IV fluids. If your blood pressure crashes, you may be given inotropes/vasopressors but the case reports about people who make it this far are not good to date (frankly, anyone who needs an ICU bed even today has a 30% mortality rate so there’s always the baseline comparison) Once ventilated, you will usually be in antibiotics to prevent opportunistic infections. We have no other ways of helping those who are otherwise able to breathe on their own, besides symptom control (ie fever/aches and pains) however if I were to get this I would ride the fever out (heightened temperature activated immune system, trial in ICU of permissive hyperthermia shows survival benefit, although this is in sepsis patients) If you have a productive cough (cough usually dry) then chest clearance, breathing exercises may be helpful, but should consider seeking antibiotics for secondary bacterial pneumonia