Months of trial and error in the ICU offer clues on how to save COVID patients

Sanja Jelic’s worst day in almost two decades as a critical care doctor in New York City was April 6. Faced with an unmanageable influx of coronavirus patients at Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s step-down unit, an intermediate care ward, Jelic made an unorthodox decision: she asked those struggling to breathe to roll onto their bellies while they waited for intubation to mechanically ventilate their inflamed lungs.