Treatment for severe acute respiratory distress syndrome from COVID-19
Given the practical constraints on substantially increasing the global availability of ECMO services in the next few months, it is important to emphasise the other evidence-based treatment options that can be provided for patients with severe ARDS from COVID-19 (figure).2 Before endotracheal intubation, it is important to consider a trial of high-flow nasal oxygen for patients with moderately severe hypoxaemia. This procedure might avoid the need for intubation and mechanical ventilation because it provides high concentrations of humidified oxygen, low levels of positive end-expiratory pressure, and can facilitate the elimination of carbon dioxide.4 WHO guidelines support the use of high-flow nasal oxygen in some patients, but they urge close monitoring for clinical deterioration that could result in the need for emergent intubations because such procedures might increase the risk of infection to health-care workers.5
w/therapy-implementation chart:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30127-2/fulltext
That ECMO machine must be something else!
The effect of control strategies to reduce social mixing on outcomes of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China: a modelling study
Our projections show that physical distancing measures were most effective if the staggered return to work was at the beginning of April; this reduced the median number of infections by more than 92% (IQR 66–97) and 24% (13–90) in mid-2020 and end-2020, respectively. There are benefits to sustaining these measures until April in terms of delaying and reducing the height of the peak, median epidemic size at end-2020, and affording health-care systems more time to expand and respond. However, the modelled effects of physical distancing measures vary by the duration of infectiousness and the role school children have in the epidemic.
Interpretation
Restrictions on activities in Wuhan, if maintained until April, would probably help to delay the epidemic peak. Our projections suggest that premature and sudden lifting of interventions could lead to an earlier secondary peak, which could be flattened by relaxing the interventions gradually. However, there are limitations to our analysis, including large uncertainties around estimates of R0 and the duration of infectiousness.
Funding
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Institute for Health Research, Wellcome Trust, and Health Data Research UK.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30073-6/fulltext