Two years ago I read an article that said a recent polio vaccination offered some crossover immunity (5%) against Covid, so I got re-vaccinated against polio.
A friend of mine at Boeing told me he spent a year in an iron lung as a kid.
> An iron lung is a type of negative pressure ventilator (NPV), a mechanical respirator which encloses most of a person's body, and varies the air pressure in the enclosed space, to stimulate breathing.
Holy crap that sounds uncomfortable, I already hate the few mbar pressure difference between ground level and 6th floor, let alone doing that 30 times a minute (resting breathing rate: 12-15 breaths/minute -> switching from breathing in, to breathing out, means 2 pressure changes per breath). Surely there are more comfortable solutions to operating one's chest, something like shaving and a (number of) large suction cup(s) to operate the chest, perhaps aided by weak glue around the edges?
Edit: "in which a person is laid, with their head protruding from a hole in the end of the cylinder" whew. Does make me wonder how to prevent hyperventilation (too high a rate) while providing enough oxygen at all times (like during stress or other exertion, resting rate may not be enough).
> Positive pressure ventilation systems are now more common than negative pressure systems. Positive pressure ventilators work by blowing air into the patient's lungs via intubation through the airway [...] [this has] the advantage of not restricting patients' movements or caregivers' ability to examine the patients
Doesn't sound that much better, as I've heard that intubation is its own kind of hell. (On intubation, Wikipedia just mentions "Patients are generally anesthetized beforehand.")
>Perceiving a pressure difference from 6 floors of elevation does not seem legit.
I generally don't notice it myself, but if you do the math (office building floor height averages ~14 feet/4.27 metres), six stories of altitude difference would change ambient air pressure by ~.3kPa.
Humans can detect very small (much smaller than .3kPa) changes in air pressure, although some folks are more sensitive than others.
Dunno, I generally complain about it being uncomfortable before other people do (also on a train going through a tunnel for example), if it's an illness I don't know.
A friend of mine at Boeing told me he spent a year in an iron lung as a kid.