Coronavirus patients in Hyderabad showing low oxygen saturation, breathlessness major symptom

HYDERABAD: Covid-19 patients turning up at the government testing centres across the city have oxygen saturation as low as 40%, officials have said. While the ideal oxygen level should be above 95 percent, majority of the patients coming with breathlessness have levels between 80 and 85 percent.
According to experts, the lungs begin to get damaged as the body doesn’t get the required oxygen at such low levels.The damage is seen to increase progressively with lower levels of saturation and is indicative of a critical case at hand.
Officials have observed that patients with severe dyspnea symptoms are mostly testing positive. “Most of the Covid-19 cases are present with breathlessness, as the patient’s lungs are already damaged. In such cases, oxygen saturation level seen on the pulse oximeter is very low. When air enters our lungs, the oxygen saturation is 100 percent but by the time it travels down the trachea and reaches the finger tips, a bit of the oxygen is waned off and will be above 95 percent,” said a senior official overlooking testing at government labs.
“However, we are seeing some cases with as low as 40-50 percent saturation levels. Among patients, who are coming with breathlessness, 95 percent are testing positive,” the official added.
Majority of the Covid-19 patients are found to have breathlessness as a symptom, while a few have cough, cold and fever too. Severe diarrhoea is also seen in a few cases.
The state has also seen about 65 percent of the asymptomatic cases. “These people either have a positive contact or have travelled from an international destination or Maharashtra. Many of them are migrants or health workers,” said another microbiologist engaged in testing samples.