Medical oxygen is key to Covid fight, but once it used to be quack remedy

Supplemental oxygen makes the difference between life and death for many Covid-19 patients.

The desperate scenes playing out in India may foreshadow a dangerous new phase of the pandemic where people die in droves, not of the disease so much as a lack of proper medical care. The situation could get a lot worse thanks to a sudden shortage of medical oxygen in the country.

Oxygen is one of most straightforward and proactive ways of treating the disease, which causes hypoxia. When patients begin gasping for air, a steady supply of concentrated oxygen does wonders.

It may seem like an obvious treatment in hindsight, yet it took nearly two centuries to overcome strange theories, outright