ECMO for COVID-19 patients in Europe and Israel

Since March 15th, 2020, 177 centres from Europe and Israel have joined the study, routinely reporting on the ECMO support they provide to COVID-19 patients. The mean annual number of cases treated with ECMO in the participating centres before the pandemic (2019) was 55. The number of COVID-19 patients has increased rapidly each week reaching 1531 treated patients as of September 14th. The greatest number of cases has been reported from France (n = 385), UK (n = 193), Germany (n = 176), Spain (n = 166), and Italy (n = 136) .The mean age of treated patients was 52.6 years (range 16–80), 79% were male. The ECMO configuration used was VV in 91% of cases, VA in 5% and other in 4%. The mean PaO2 before ECMO implantation was 65 mmHg. The mean duration of ECMO support thus far has been 18 days and the mean ICU length of stay of these patients was 33 days. As of the 14th September, overall 841 patients have been weaned from ECMO support, 601 died during ECMO support, 71 died after withdrawal of ECMO, 79 are still receiving ECMO support and for 10 patients status n.a. . Our preliminary data suggest that patients placed on ECMO with severe refractory respiratory or cardiac failure secondary to COVID-19 have a reasonable (55%) chance of survival. Further extensive data analysis is expected to provide invaluable information on the demographics, severity of illness, indications and different ECMO management strategies in these patients

Les «Méditations phénoménologiques» de Marc Richir

Marc Richir' s Méditations phénoménologiques present themselves as a remoulding of Husserl 's phenomenology into a phenomenology of the symbolic understood as the unsurpassable non-equation of a sense making itself and of a definitively unstable phenomenality. In order to elucidate the latter before any institution, it is appropriate to take up the problem of method in phenomenology: it must rest on a zig-zag inquiry and on an architectonic. But it must above all rest on a new practice of the epoche, the hyperbolic epoche, from which the dynamism of the phenomenon is set free, as a trascen- dental field, from its two poles, objective and subjective, each bearers of illusions needing to be unmasked. (Transl. by J. Dudley).Les Méditations phénoménologiques de Marc Richir se présentent comme la refonte de la phénoménologie husserlienne en une phénoménologie du symbolique compris comme l'inadéquation indépassable d'un sens se faisant et d'une phénoménalité définitivement instable. Pour élucider celle-ci en deçà de toute institution, il convient de reprendre le problème de la méthode en phénoménologie: elle doit reposer sur une enquête en zigzag et sur une architectonique. Mais elle doit reposer surtout sur une nouvelle pratique de l'épochè, l'épochè hyperbolique, à partir de quoi le dynamisme du phénomène est libéré, comme champ transcendantal, de ses deux pôles, objectif et subjectif, chacun porteur d'illusions à démasquer.Ghitti Jean-Marc. Les «Méditations phénoménologiques» de Marc Richir. In: Revue Philosophique de Louvain. Quatrième série, tome 97, n°3-4, 1999. pp. 581-605

La Musique des catastrophes

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