A health worker uses a pulse oximeter to check the oxygen saturation level of another after administering COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Gauhati, India, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. India kicked off its massive vaccination drive on Jan. 17, with a goal of inoculating 300 million of its nearly 1.4 billion people.
A health worker uses a pulse oximeter to check the oxygen saturation level of another after administering COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Gauhati, India, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. India kicked off its massive vaccination drive on Jan. 17, with a goal of inoculating 300 million of its nearly 1.4 billion people. Associated Press
Herb Scribner
By Herb Scribner

The United Kingdom has started to send high-risk COVID-19 patients a device that could help save their lives — a pulse oximeter, which can monitor oxygen levels at home, according to BBC News.

What’s going on?

Experts in the United Kingdom have begun sending out pulse oximeters to high-risk COVID-19 patients because they can potentially save lives, BBC News reports.

  • The device monitors how far oxygen levels drop in the blood. Many people experience this without knowing it, BBC News reports. So when they arrive at the hospital, they’re already in worse condition than they thought they were. This is an experience called “silent hypoxia.”
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Dr. Matt Inada-Kim, a consultant in acute medicine at Hampshire Hospitals. told BBC News that it’s an important step forward.

  • “With COVID, we were admitting patients with oxygen levels in the 70s or low-or-middle 80s. It was a really curious and scary presentation and really made us rethink what we were doing.”

What is silent hypoxia?

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Silent hypoxia has been one of the most devastating issues for COVID-19 patients since the pandemic began. As the Deseret News reported, patients with this issue experience blood oxygen levels near 60% to 70% — normal is about 94% or more — without even knowing it.

  • For some reason, the human brain isn’t informing patients that they’re in trouble and that they’re not getting oxygen, according to the Deseret News.
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