A St. Louis doctor gave a sobering first-person picture of what a death due to COVID-19 looks like, saying he hopes the footage will force more people to wear a mask.
Dr. Kenneth E. Remy, a critical care physician who also serves as a city councilor in Wildwood, Missouri, released an 88-second video on Saturday to illustrate the “serious” conditions anyone could face if they didn’t take over the escalating coronavirus crisis. .
“This is what it looks like when you breathe 40 times a minute, your oxygen level drops well below 80” – Remy he says in the clipwhile holding a tube over the camera to simulate what the patient sees when they are about to connect to a ventilator.
– This is what it will look like. I hope the last moments of your life don’t look that way. Because you’ll see this at the end of your life if we don’t start wearing a mask when we’re out in public.
Remy ends the torture clip by encouraging people to wear a mask, practice social distance, and wash their hands frequently.
“Because I promise you, you’ll see this,” he repeats. “I promise you that this is what your mother, father or children will see at the end of their lives when they suffer from COVID. This is serious.”
The virus has so far killed 3,750 Missouri residents and infected another 279,000 people on Tuesday, state data show.
In St. Louis, where Remy filmed his video at the ICU unit of the Missouri Baptist Medical Center, the number of coronavirus cases, hospital stays, and deaths has reached record highs in the past 10 days, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Remy said he kept the passionate supplication in mind for people who refused to wear a mask or donated it as a political statement.
“Wearing a mask and preventing disease is the best way to protect personal liberties,” Remy told the newspaper.
“It doesn’t matter to you your personal freedom when I inhale a breathing tube and then you die.”
He added that last week 11 families had to say that their relatives had let COVID-19.
“It’s the worst way to ever start a conversation,” Remy said.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the United States reported more than 12.4 million cases of COVID-19, resulting in the deaths of at least 258,666 people.
