about permissive hypoxemia in COVID patients. People come in with an oxygen saturation in the low 70's but completely awake and alert, and talking in full sentences, with no apparent respiratory distress at all. Initially docs were terrified and intubated these patients quickly because we really had no other options (because we had been told no high flow oxygen or CPAP/BiPAP due to risk of aerosolizing the virus). But yeah, as others have mentioned, the intubated patients didn't do very well, and didn't seem to follow the normal pathway of ARDS, while patients who were not intubated weirdly seemed to do better.

EM:RAP does a live podcast about every week, which is later posted on YouTube. They talk to ED and critical care docs who are on the front lines in dealing with this stuff. Great insight, every week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLbKyc31XhM