Normal blood oxygen saturation is 95% and above; without a history of fairly significant lung disease I’d be surprised if you were persistently under this level—note that an oximeter can give very variable readings due to artefact from all sorts of things including movement, ambient light, temperature (probably a significant one in the context of an infection if you are having a fever/rigoring/very cold fingers), and the number it spits out is the average over the last 3-12s.
If you are short of breath with coronavirus it is worth talking to a healthcare provider. If you are a generally well human and have persistent sats around 90%, go to hospital. If you have oxygen sats of 85% you are severely hypoxic and should consider an ambulance.
(I didn’t downvote your post and I applaud that you went to the effort to find out more and make actual thresholds for action)
Personally my oxygen saturation always reads 91-93%. I’m 47 years old with no known lung problems who never smoked. People vary. I’m an unusually large man, so it may be a square-cube law effect or a finger-thickness effect. It may be some other confounder.
Under normal circumstances I would agree with the rest. In the very near future healthcare providers are expected to be absolutely swamped with coronavirus cases; apparently corpses have been piling up in Italy. I think my thresholds for action are stricter than yours because I’m trying to minimize strain on the system. But at 90% your plan is to go to the hospital and my plan is to call a doctor to find out if I should go to the hospital. That’s not a huge difference.
Related: the mayor of Baltimore has requested his citizens avoid senseless gun violence for similar reasons. Things are getting weird out there.
Normal blood oxygen saturation is 95% and above; without a history of fairly significant lung disease I’d be surprised if you were persistently under this level—note that an oximeter can give very variable readings due to artefact from all sorts of things including movement, ambient light, temperature (probably a significant one in the context of an infection if you are having a fever/rigoring/very cold fingers), and the number it spits out is the average over the last 3-12s.
If you are short of breath with coronavirus it is worth talking to a healthcare provider. If you are a generally well human and have persistent sats around 90%, go to hospital. If you have oxygen sats of 85% you are severely hypoxic and should consider an ambulance.
(I didn’t downvote your post and I applaud that you went to the effort to find out more and make actual thresholds for action)
Personally my oxygen saturation always reads 91-93%. I’m 47 years old with no known lung problems who never smoked. People vary. I’m an unusually large man, so it may be a square-cube law effect or a finger-thickness effect. It may be some other confounder.
Under normal circumstances I would agree with the rest. In the very near future healthcare providers are expected to be absolutely swamped with coronavirus cases; apparently corpses have been piling up in Italy. I think my thresholds for action are stricter than yours because I’m trying to minimize strain on the system. But at 90% your plan is to go to the hospital and my plan is to call a doctor to find out if I should go to the hospital. That’s not a huge difference.
Related: the mayor of Baltimore has requested his citizens avoid senseless gun violence for similar reasons. Things are getting weird out there.