[redis_mlc]

It's more subtle than that. Here's some background before I answer your question.

One doctor has said that corona patients should be treated like altitude sickness patients, not like viral patients (and this Wuhan article implies that.)

All doctors say that ventilator intubation is the equivalent of major surgery, requiring anesthetics for the duration of ventilation and a long recovery period. High air pressure damages lung tissue, so afterwards you won't be walking or talking much for weeks or months.

So when you put those together, the best US approach today so far is to provide supplemental oxygen with face masks or cannula until the patient faints repeatedly (turns blue or purple), then make a decision to intubate. (China learned and published this in Jan. or Feb., but we learned it in Mar. or Apr.)

The only problem there is that mouth-breathing patients aerosolize corona virua and infect staff and other patients, so they should be moved out of the hospital to a quarantine facility or sent home. I don't think we are doing this yet, and it's an important step to stopping lockdown since we'll have thousands of new patients to monitor and help breathe.

The US mistakes made pre-Apr. 1 were early intubation based on traditional oxygen level monitoring (and to prevent aerosolization to protect staff.) That had a 66% - 90% mortality rate and consumed too many ventilators.

> out best chance now is not to cure them, but to help them survive until their immune system fight it off?

There is no plan, cure or pattern except we give them oxygen and see what happens next. We have no diagnostic tools that tell us cause and effect. For example, X-rays can show corona virus lung congestion, but there's no measurement or inference we can draw from any image. All we know is that ventilators are a one-way trip for most patients. It is what it is.

[fragmede]

In a less political time with more open societies, we could confirm earlier research started by the Chinese, giving us lead times for our doctors to confirm their theories, which would help get to a scientifically proven and recommended course of action. (Like the pre-print that discusses COVID-19 attacking hemoglobin which then inhibits the ability for the blood to hold oxygen.)

Unfortunately, nationalism has kicked in, and there are rumors that China is censoring any papers that discuss a possible origin, hindering progress.

So now all we can do is give oxygen and hope for the best.

[rjsw]

One thing that might help for the general population could be iron supplements. Not to prevent infection but to help the body to respond to low oxygen levels if you become infected.

[fragmede]

Maybe. There's a pre-print, not-(yet?)-peer-reviewed paper[0] that theorizes that SARS-Cov-2 directly inhibits the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen by binding in the place of iron (approximately)[1].

If this is true, then iron supplements could be dangerous, as too much iron is toxic, possibly fatal.

[0] The paper's abstract explicitly calls out the status of the research: "This paper is only for academic discussion, the correctness needs to be confirmed by other laboratories. Due to the side effects and allergic reactions of drugs such as chloroquine, please consult a qualified doctor for treatment details, and do not take the medicine yourself."

[1] https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surf...

[rjsw]

I was thinking more that our response to low oxygen levels at altitude is to make more red blood cells and you need iron to do that.

Plus if you are having problems shopping for food then green vegetables may not be your top priority.