Welcome to the 502nd Critical Care Reviews Newsletter, bringing you the best critical care research and open access articles from across the medical literature over the past seven days.

The highlight of this week's edition is the preprint of the COVID STEROID 2 trial, comparing 12 mg with 6 mg of dexamethasone in patients with COVID-19 and severe hypoxia. There are also randomised controlled trials on the effect of reinstituting mechanical ventilation for 1 hour after a spontaneous breathing trial & the effect of canakinumab in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19; systematic reviews and meta analyses on conservative oxygen therapy for critically ill patients & clinical trials in COVID-19 management & prevention; and observational studies on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant & pulmonary function and radiologic features in survivors of critical COVID-19.

There is also a statement on advancing precision medicine for ARDS; narrative reviews on ICU survivorship & ethics in extracorporeal life support; an editorial on takeaways from a year of pandemic research; and commentaries on the future of acute and emergency care & CPAP after major abdominal surgery.

If you only have time to read one review article this week, try this one on myocarditis in COVID-19 patients.