In 2020, with adult ICUs at risk of being overwhelmed, we wore masks and accepted restrictions. Now pediatric intensive care is at risk. Will leaders follow the evidence and tell us to mask up?
ECMO uses an artificial heart and lung to replace the entire function of the person’s own heart and lungs outside the body. And COVID is demanding more ECMO than we’ve ever used before.
Eliana Close, Queensland University of Technology; Ben White, Queensland University of Technology; Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology; Simon Young, University of Southern Queensland; Tina Cockburn, Queensland University of Technology, and Will Cairns, James Cook University
Who gets scarce life-saving resources when hospitals are overwhelmed? And how are these decisions made? State and territory governments are yet to answer these difficult questions.
Plasma therapy sounded great at the start of the pandemic. Give COVID patients blood plasma from people who had recovered. But the evidence is in. It doesn’t work.
Medications to treat COVID-19 are in no way a substitute for the vaccine. But under the right circumstances, some show great promise for helping patients.
The term ‘intubation’ is used when experts talk about treating patients with severe COVID-19. But this medical term doesn’t explain the traumatic procedure involved.
It seems things have shifted slightly since earlier in the pandemic. A growing proportion of people hospitalised with the Delta strain are aged in their 30s or 40s.
A year after it became clear that COVID-19 was becoming a pandemic, there is still no cure, but doctors have several innovative treatments. Some are keeping patients out of the hospital entirely.
In the event COVID-19 sees ICU resources stretched too thin, Victoria doesn’t have clear, uniform or transparent guidelines outlining who should be prioritised for care.
Is it possible that people who recover from COVID-19 will be plagued with long term side effects from the infection? An infectious disease physician reviews the evidence so far.
The only chaplain in the COVID-19 section of a Montréal hospital offers spiritual care to patients and families, as well to staff, who have found themselves more intimately exposed to life and death.
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney
Acting Assistant Scientific Director Critical Care Strategic Clinical Network, Alberta Health Services and Senior Research Associate, University of Calgary