Happy Hypoxia: Know Why The 'Silent' Condition In Youth During Covid May Prove Fatal

Happy Hypoxia is seen as one of the factors behind deaths in the younger generation in the second wave because younger patients do not realize their oxygen level is going down, and continue with normal activities without any intervention.

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Covid In India: The second wave of Covid-19 sweeping the country is reportedly affecting the youth more than elderlies. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) cited the reason being that youth might have begun going out and also because of some variants of SARs-COV-2 prevalent in the country.

However, on whether the younger population was getting more affected, ICMR Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava mentioned the comparison of data in both waves has shown that there is not much age difference.

In the second wave, it is worth noting that a condition of ‘happy hypoxia’ has come to the fore which is not specific to any generation as such. There are cetain cases across different age groups where covid patients are showing a drop in oxygen levels, but they are behaving ‘normal’.  Such a state of condition is termed as ‘happy hypoxia’.

 What is the condition of ‘happy hypoxia’?

Experts have tried to figure out the reason why some Covid-19 positive experience extremely low, otherwise life-threatening levels of oxygen, considered as happy hypoxia, without showing any signs of difficulty in breathing.

If you go by the study published in The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine in 2020 the condition, also referred to as silent hypoxemia may prevent unnecessary intubation and ventilation in patients during the current wave of coronavirus.

However, certain factors make the youth vulnerable to the new wave of this deadly disease. Oxygen levels in Covid-19 patients with happy hypoxia seem to have dropped to 20-30 per cent, as per Dr Rajkamal Choudhry quoted in India Today, who is an associate professor at the Department of Medicine of the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Bhagalpur in Bihar.

It was estimated that 30 per cent of India’s covid-19 patients who require hospitalisation have happy hypoxia, which could prove fatal, as per the expert.

As per the report in Mint, Happy Hypoxia is one of the factors behind deaths in the younger generation in the second wave. It is because most of the younger patients do not get to realize that their oxygen level is going low, and continue with their normal activities without any intervention and the oxygen level suddenly dips.

As per the India Today report, along with other covid-19 symptoms, a person with happy hypoxia, may witness ‘change of the colour of lips from natural tone to blue, skin discolouration to red or purple tone or profuse sweating even when not doing arduous physical work could be a symptom of happy hypoxia’.

Hence, it is critical to constantly monitor the oxygen saturation level with an oximeter to prevent any severity of the condition.

According to a professor at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in the US, even as a pulse oximeter is remarkably accurate when oxygen readings are high, it can exaggerate the severity of low levels of oxygen when readings are low. It also depends on how the brain responds to low levels of oxygen.