Oh please! I spent 25 years with my crews in the back of medic units transporting people with breathing difficulties to the hospital. By the time they get to the ER they ate no longer blue; we give the high flow O2 with bag valve masks. No one at the hospital refers to them as “blue people” that I ever heard. Is that what they call them on TV hospital dramas?
Remember, the first doctor that saw this and sounded the alarm had seen only 4 patients and recognized this was something new and serious. Respiratory failure is how this disease is going to present as people are being told “stay home”.
I just now remembered my first experience with a real “blue person” in the ER in Panama at Georgia’s Hospital. A National Guard Unit had deployed into the Darien and a company of our guys supported them. Our guys took the Chloroquine. Someone on their team forgot to take care of their people and none ever asked what those pills our guys were taking were for. I was there the Saturday afternoon when they started rolling in with Malaria. Like you, I had seen “plenty of blue people”. Malaria impressed me. I knew in 2 seconds this was something new (to me). I’m sure this Chinese doctor was similarly impressed.
And. You can’t tell me in 25 years you never arrived at the ER with a blue patient? I can remember vividly at least several occasions getting a blue person out of the ambulance with pink foam spraying out of the ET tube.