[EvaH (OP)]

Martin wants to know:

Has any one tried using Heliox to help patients breathe easier while in hospital? This mixture helps get the gases into the blood stream with less effort. I'm assuming that the people who are on oxygen are waiting for their antibodies to build up so that they can fight off the virus.This mixture of Helium & Oxygen may buy them that extra time.

What do you think?

[Bored chemist]

It's hard to see how diluting the oxygen that patients need with helium would help
Helium is a non-renewable resource and is very expensive.
Helium and oxygen have very similar viscosities.

[alancalverd]

There is a small body of quite sound literature that suggests heliox improves O2sat in patients with acute COPD and various presentations of asthma. The hypothesis is that the bronchiolar and alveolar flow is less turbulent than N2 diluent, but I find that counterintuitive as gas transfer should be better with turbulent interfacial flow.

However the experiments were conducted with total-loss exhalation of the very rare and expensive carrier gas. AFAIK it would be just as effective and a lot cheaper and more accessible for semichronic treatment to stick to oxygen-concentrated air or pure oxygen - all the kit is standard issue and you can use rebreathing to maintain the essential CO2 and humidity levels.

Save it (and recycle it) for diving.