Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics, writes that some danger will still exist when things return to “normal.”
A doctor attached a cannula to Ms. Thakur’s nose and administered a continuous flow of oxygen at 50 liters per minute. She struggled to maintain her oxygen saturation rate at 80, way below the normal level of 95.
“Is she going to make it?” a junior doctor asked. The older doctor didn’t reply. Ms. Thakur is still fighting for her life. She is 27.
When Ms. Thakur was admitted, the doctors at the G.I.M.S. were also treating a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy. A ventilator helped them push her oxygen saturation rate up to 80 percent. One evening, after a sonography showed a healthy baby, somersaulting inside her belly, the doctors found themselves debating whether they could operate on her for C-section. Administering anesthesia to operate on the mother would lower her oxygen saturation rate to dangerous levels.