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.
It was our department's policy to over oxygenate for most of my career. We brought dead people in to the hospital that were pinked up with aggressive CPR. In the last few years it was decided that some of our patients were having poor outcomes because we raised their O2 levels too much.
But sure some people still looked blue when we delivered them; I just never heard people use the term “blue people” to describe them. But we tended to hang out more with the ambulance and medic crews than the ER staff so maybe I missed something. I understand your point and am sorry for reacting the way that I did.