Reading this article in the New York Times gave me a much-needed little jolt of hope this morning:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus.html
From the article "What Doctors on the Front Lines Wish They'd Known a Month Ago":
"Some patients, by taking oxygen and rolling onto their sides or on their bellies, have quickly returned to normal levels. The tactic is called proning."
And:
"At Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, Dr. Nicholas Caputo followed 50 patients who arrived with low oxygen levels between 69 and 85 percent (95 is normal). After five minutes of proning, they had improved to a mean of 94 percent. Over the next 24 hours, nearly three-quarters were able to avoid intubation; 13 needed ventilators. Proning does not seem to work as well in older patients, a number of doctors said."
Even with the caveat that the technique doesn't work as well for older patients, and of course the whole treatment situation is very experimental and on-the-fly, as a caregiver to an elder with a DNR who does not want extreme measures like intubation, I found this article very heartening!
The 'news' wants to keep us scared and on edge. There are no 'ratings' associated with 'good news' only bad, scary, awful 'end of the world' type news.
I read ONE source of news in the am. Then I just go about my day. There is nothing more I can do and constantly watching the news and numbers go up (which they will, for a while still) is not helping me or anybody else.
This (what you posted) is good news, so of course it won't make headlines. Sad, b/c if it's really a game changer, it could be wonderful.
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The idea is to get them off their backs and thereby make more lung available. A number of doctors are even trying patients on a special massage mattress designed for pregnant women because it has cutouts that ease the load on the belly and chest.”