Doctor who treated first US coronavirus patient says COVID-19 "circulating unchecked' for weeks.
Doctor who treated first US coronavirus patient says COVID-19 has been ‘circulating unchecked’ for weeks
CNBC
PUBLISHED FRI, MAR 6 202011:04 AM ESTUPDATED MOMENTS AGO
By Berkeley Lovelace Jr and William Feuer
Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips recalled the day the first U.S. patient infected with COVID-19, a 35-year-old man from Snohomish County in Washington state, had taken a “turn for the worse.”
“He was day nine in his course and he actually started going downhill, started getting worse,” said Compton-Phillips, chief clinical officer of Providence St. Joseph Health, where the patient was treated.
At first, the patient only had common cold-like symptoms, Compton-Phillips said. But very quickly he began to have shortness of breath and a cough, she said. His X-ray also showed viral pneumonia. He needed supplemental oxygen and had to be put on an experimental antiviral treatment. The patient has recovered and has been released from the hospital.
Since the patient landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 15 from the outbreak’s epicenter in Wuhan, China, the virus has spread to at least 75 other people in Washington state, killing 14 in the U.S. so far — 13 in Washington and one in California, according to Johns Hopkins University.
... Compton-Phillips said the doctors, nurses and other front-line workers watching the outbreak in real time are all saying “this is coming.”
“It’s not if, it’s when. And we better get ready now,” she said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/doctor-who-treated-first-us-coronavirus-patient-says-covid-19-has-been-circulating-unchecked-for-weeks.html
