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"The patient became cyanotic with blue lips, movements stopped, the muscles relaxed, deep breathing followed, cyanosis waned, and color returned to the lips as the patient was moved to a recovery room."

The first thing that came to Fishbein’s mind was cyanosis — not getting enough oxygen to the tissues.

Wright’s writing is clinical and unblinking – you stare into chest cavities, at lungs subsumed in fluid, at bodies turned blue by cyanosis, or lack of oxygen.

Some COVID-19 patients, however had the kind of very low saturations that we associate with cyanosis and respiratory distress—but they were comfortably speaking to us or texting on their phones.

At around 2:15 that day, employees of the plastic surgery office "discovered that Ms. Nguyen’s lips and face were blue and that cyanosis was quickly spreading to her upper extremities and torso."