Last week I interviewed a friend in Mississippi who is a doctor fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in the south. The interview just published at Forbes: COVID-19: “Our Generation’s Great War”
If you want to know what hospitals are dealing with, he provides insight in this interview. We cover a lot of ground, and he addresses many misconceptions. Please share so people understand what is happening in our hospitals.
A quote from the interview:
Robert: Can you describe how COVID-19 differs from seasonal flu? What kind of symptoms are you seeing?
Dr. Tipton: This is not a typical March/April hospital season. We have an unusually large number of patients requiring a ventilator, and people are dying. This is not a statistical blip. Patients don’t normally need to be intubated in these numbers. We are having to take extraordinary measures to treat these patients.
What we are seeing is the lungs start leaking plasma. Eventually the lungs fill up with fluid and they don’t work. We are seeing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with the fluid leaking into the lungs. With ARDS, breathing becomes difficult, oxygen cannot get into the body, and it can lead to death.
I would also note that this doctor is a Trump supporter, and he found himself on the side of having to explain to other Trump supporters that this isn’t a hoax, or something drummed up by the media to hurt Trump. In other words, he found himself in the position that I am in every day: Explaining to a Trump supporter why what they believe just isn’t so.