In Nick Cordero's Death, a Reminder of Covid-19's Unknowns (NYT)

[Mike 03]

NYT
Katherine J. Wu
July 6, 2020, 5:51 p.m. ET

The Broadway star died from the coronavirus, despite being just 41 and in apparent good health. Cases like his, experts said, are growing.

The death of the Broadway actor Nick Cordero from Covid-19 has shaken people far beyond the theater world, in large part because he was just 41 and reportedly had no underlying health conditions.

Medical experts said that Mr. Cordero’s death underscored a multitude of unknowns about the coronavirus — including the ways it could imperil even young, healthy people who did not appear to be at increased risk of contracting severe disease.

“The idea that ‘I’m young, I’ll be fine’ is not an idea that we can completely subscribe to,” said Dr. Utibe Essien, a physician and health equity researcher at the University of Pittsburgh.

Amanda Kloots, Mr. Cordero’s wife, has said that he had no known pre-existing conditions that might have worsened the course of his disease. As more data emerges, serious cases of younger, healthy people like him are becoming less of an anomaly, doctors said.

“A young person who has no real medical comorbidities, but gets super sick and ends up on multiple support machines” is a clinical portrait that doctors are now seeing “a lot,” said Dr. Taison Bell, a physician specializing in infectious disease and pulmonary and critical care at the University of Virginia.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/health/coronavirus-nick-cordero-underlying-conditions.html

[live love laugh]

1. Friend of family hospitalized since April 7th with Covid

39 years old w/out prior health problems.

Body. Ravaged. Current weight: skeletal.

Basically neglected. Serious bad bed sores.

In ICU about two months; on ventilator, got a trach ... skin compromised with rash.

Unable to walk, eat, control bowels, relearning talking.

Weak.

But still alive.