West Virginia's patient #1. Details of the struggle to get him tested.
Long read. I got frustrated just reading it.
How one woman fought to get her husband tested while her state was applauded for having no coronavirus
He would become the state's Patient #1. They didn't know it then, of course, nor did anyone else. But in the following days they felt like that they were the only people in the state who wanted to find out. From medical professionals who simply had no information to health administrators in the same boat, all the way up to the President saying the state was doing a good job for having no cases.
It made no sense to her for West Virginia -- with its health and wealth gaps, plus its high rate of smokers -- to be impervious to a virus that hits the respiratory system.
The doctor's receptionist told her "you absolutely cannot come here." And she was given a hotline number. The same number she had called for the state health department that had sent her to call their doctor. It was her first dead end.
The next day, they expected to get the test results, only they never got a call. When it hit midafternoon, she contacted the ER. She was told to call the state lab. According to Carolyn, they said to call the county health department. The county health department told her something that hit her in the gut: They had no record of James being tested.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/us/west-virginia-coronavirus-patient-one-test/index.html
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