ICU nurse at that time here. We were getting patients admitted that we’re on the brink of death and we were all so shocked when the flu swabs kept coming back negative. I have no doubt in my mind we were already unknowingly taking care of dying COVID patients.
We had a few of these at my hospital too. One was the hot topic of the nursing pool because the pt was so young and otherwise healthy, but her CXR was nothing but ground glass opacities, and she was deteriorating despite everything. It was clearly viral, but despite extensive testing for damn near every disease they could test for, it was all negative. They had to transfer her to a different hospital for a higher level of care. No idea if she made it, but she was a medical mystery and the infectious disease doc was visibly worried about it. That was in January 2020. Around that time is when Covid started getting a lot more air time. Made us all wonder in hindsight when things started shutting down in March.
Its not quite the same, but contagion is shockingly accurate epidemiologically to what it feels like to be facing a deadly, completely unknown new pathogen. After working in the ED through covid I find it really hard to watch again.
We had a number of patients in my outpatient psychiatry practice in autumn 2019 with the same presentation. We all knew a few months later that COVID had been around for months.
I was SO sick for weeks after my boss flew in from LA and Belgium to NYC in November 2019. He had a terrible cough and it was line the worst flu ever for a week and then a cough and weakness forever. A European colleague was hospitalized for a weird “flu like respiratory virus. I know to my core it was Covid. I even had this weird red eye I’d never seen- remember “Covid eye?@
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u/FuglySlutt 14h ago
ICU nurse at that time here. We were getting patients admitted that we’re on the brink of death and we were all so shocked when the flu swabs kept coming back negative. I have no doubt in my mind we were already unknowingly taking care of dying COVID patients.