Your Personal COVID-19 Story?

A sad and scary story from our newspaper today.   One of our deaths (8 total as of this morning) was a 42 y/o female.   Her sister gave an interview with these details:

Victim was "a healthy, hand-sanitizer queen."   She felt ill off and on "common cold" for a week.   A co-worker (office) developed symptoms and was tested--negative.  She assumed that since her co-worker had similar symptoms but tested negative, she thought she wan't likely to have the virus (very bad assumption). 

To shelter in place and work from home she moved in with her mother, didn't want to be stuck alone in her appartment.  Felt better for a day, went to a store.  Next day symptoms worsened.  She didn't have a thermometer.  Sister brought her a thermometer, temp 102.  By evening was SOB just walking across a room.  Still didn't call or go for screening, just taking Tylenol.  Her mother called the sister saying the girl was huddled, shaking, jacket pulled over her head and zipped.  Sister told mom get her to ER, where she had fever 102+, low oxygen levels.  Both lungs "whited out" on CXR (filled with fluid).  Put in ICU, mask O2, then on ventilator, coronavirus swab positive.  She got slightly better, then worse, organs failing, then died.  The friend's Covid-19 test was pulled and re-tested---result positive for Covid-19.  (Testing error or what? doesn't say in the article.)

So far mother has no symptoms.

A young, healthy person with a suspected exposure (the co-worker) discounts her own developing symptoms, including fever and SOB, doesn't call or go for screening. 

Doctors said when it goes south it goes very fast.

That's a horrifying story. I guess the moral is that IF YOU CAN, you should go to the hospital whenever you develop the three major symptoms of Covid-19: fever, dry cough, shortness of breath.

The trouble is, if your symptoms aren't severe at the moment, they'll tell you to go home and take Tylenol or something. They MAY test you IF kits are available---then again, they may not.

The only thing you can do at that point is be prepared to zoom (or be zoomed) back to the ER if and when your condition worsens. At which point, of course, it might be too late.

I wonder what the mortality rate is for early-stage vs. late-stage admissions. Let's say you have 48 or 72 hours between when you develop symptoms and when they get much worse. How beneficial would it be to spend that interim time in the hospital rather than at home? I know they can only treat symptoms while your body fights it off.

Sounds like yes you could be sent home from ER unless you look to be at death's door. 

I'm wondering how quickly they got that girl's CXR done and why she wasn't put on the vent sooner.  That's depending on the newspaper story being accurate.  Sometimes family exaggerates, or it gets written up incorrectly, but, hey, she died.

I predict there will be more on this story coming out, especially why the co-worker's swab was reported negative, yet the re-test on the same swab came up positive.  Stay tuned, if interested.

Corona symptom chart -