Original subtitles

this is dr. Cameron Kyle Seidel ER and

critical care doctor from New York City

nine days ago I opened an intensive care

unit to care for the sickest kovat

positive patients in this city in these

nine days I've seen things I have never

seen before in treating these patients I

have witnessed medical phenomenon that

just don't make sense in the context of

treating a disease that is supposed to

be a viral pneumonia nine days ago I

presumed I was opening an intensive care

unit to treat patients with a virus

causing a pneumonia that was ravaging

lungs across the world starting out as

something mild cough a sore throat and

progressively increasing in severity

until ultimately ending in something

called acute respiratory distress

syndrome or a RDS this is the paradigm

that every hospital in the country is

working under this is the disease a RDS

that every hospital is preparing to

treat and this is the disease a RDS for

which in the next two to six weeks a

hundred thousand Americans might be put

on a ventilator and yet everything I've

seen in the last nine days all the

things that just don't make sense the

patients I'm seeing in front of me the

lungs I'm trying to improve have led me

to believe that kovat 19 is not this

disease and that we are operating under

a medical paradigm that is untrue in

short I believe we are treating the

wrong disease and I fear that this

misguided treatment will lead to a

tremendous amount of harm to a great

number of people in a very short time as

New York City appears to be about ten

days ahead of the country I feel

compelled to get this information out

kovat 19 lung disease as far as I can

see is not a pneumonia and should not be

treated as one rather it appears as if

some kind of viral it appears as some

kind of viral induced disease most

resembling high altitude sickness it is

as if tens of thousands of my fellow New

Yorkers are on a plane at 30,000 feet

and the cabin pressure is slowly being

let out these patients are slowly being

starved of oxygen I have seen patients

dependent on oxygen take off their

oxygen and quickly progress through a

state of anxiety and emotional distress

and eventually get blue in the face and

while they look like patients absolutely

on the brink of death they do not look

like patient

dying of pneumonia I have never been a

mountain climber and I do not know the

conditions at Basecamp below the highest

peaks in the world but I suspect that

the patients I'm seeing in front of me

look most like as if a person was

dropped off on the top of Mount Everest

without time to acclimate I don't know

the final answer of this disease but I'm

quite sure that a ventilator is not it

that is not to say that we don't need

ventilators we absolutely need them

they are the only way at this time that

we were able to give a little more

oxygen to patients who need it but when

we treat people with a RDS we typically

use ventilators to treat what's called

respiratory failure that is we use the

ventilator to do the work that the

patient's muscles can no longer do

because they're too tired to do it these

patients muscles work fine I fear that

we are fear that if we're using a false

paradigm to treat a new disease that the

method that we program the ventilator

one based on a notion of respiratory

failure as opposed to oxygen failure

that this method and there are a great

many number of methods we can use with

the ventilator but this method being

widely adopted at this very moment in

every hospital in country which aims to

increase pressure on the lungs in order

to open them up is actually doing more

harm than good and that the pressure we

are providing that we are providing to

lungs we may be providing two lungs that

cannot stand it that cannot take it and

that the ARD s that we are seeing that

the whole world is seeing may be nothing

more than lung injury caused by the

ventilator now I don't know the final

answer to this disease I do sense that

we will have to use ventilators we will

have to use a great many number of

ventilators and we need a great many

number of ventilators but I sense that

we can use them in a much safer way in a

much safer method that safer method

challenges long-held dogmatic beliefs

within the medical community and among

lung specialists which will not be easy

to overcome but I really believe that

they must be overcome there are hundreds

of thousands of lungs in this country at

risk and and the time to overcome them

is

now I'm confident that if those of us

that work bedside with these patients

those of us who are witnessing the

things that we have never seen before

despite the many years we have worked in

the thousands of patients and diseases

we have seen if we can effectively

communicate this to all those that are

so important but who are not bedside the

researchers the administrators those who

procure our resources and make our

protocols the politicians our own

governments if we are able to convince

them that this is a disease that is

different than anything we have ever

seen I am confident that an answer can

be found that effective treatments can

be discovered and that a plan to

disseminate that treatment can be

rapidly deployed in that tens of

thousands and probably hundreds of

thousands of lives and lungs will be

protected the time for this is now we

are staring into a future in which a

great many of our fellow Americans are

going to suffer not to mention people

all around the world for those of who

will not suffer directly from this

disease from the terrible human cost of

this disease for those who will not lose

a family member or a friend and there

will be a great many number of people

who will lose those close to them but

for those who don't they are still going

to suffer from the great economic cost

of Kovan 19 we are all involved in this

future so I urge you for those of us for

if you are out there for those who work

bedside I urge you to speak up we can we

can change this I thank you all for

listening please spread the message and

stay safe