An emergency room physician who got infected with COVID-19 is giving his social media followers a day-by-day blog of how the virus’s symptoms are affecting him.
Dr. Dale Tung Chen found out he was infected with the coronavirus. He caught the disease from a colleague while treating patients in the emergency room of the Hospital Universitario La Paz in Madrid, Spain, according to the New York Post.
While living in quarantine in his home since Sunday, Chen, 35, is tweeting out ultrasounds of his lungs along with commentary about the symptoms he’s experiencing.
Chen told NBC News he wanted his experience to be educational, but he wasn’t expecting the warm response he’s received.
“It meant the whole world to me to receive support from people all around the world,” he said.
Chen’s symptoms have been relatively mild. Experts say the virus affects everyone differently.
Day 5 after #COVID diagnosis. Less cough & tired, still no dyspnea/chest pain. #POCUS update: Effusion resolved, as subpleural consolidations spread bilaterally on both posterior lower lobes. Started on HCQ yesterday. #mycoviddiary @TomasVillen @acam_acam pic.twitter.com/fjtq2SEM1d
— Yale Tung Chen (@yaletung) March 13, 2020
Chen told CNN on Friday he had developed pneumonia because of the virus, but “he’s doing just fine.”
You can follow Chen’s progress here.
Chen is not the only one sharing with others their fight against the coronavirus. A man in Wuhan, China was sick for three weeks with the disease.
Tiger Ye, 21, told The Guardian he was diagnosed on Jan. 17 and was cleared by Feb. 7. He told the newspaper the illness was at its worst from Jan. 21 to Jan. 26.
People who have been infected with COVID-19 are recovering. As of Friday, the total number of known cases worldwide stood at more than 137,000 – but that’s just for people that have been tested and confirmed. There have been more than 5,000 deaths due to the disease.
However, the total number of people who have recovered from the virus currently stands at almost 70,000.
John Hopkins University has created a website where the medical data by country is added and is regularly updated.
For those who do contract COVID-19, roughly 20 percent will experience severe-to-critical symptoms, but the vast majority do not. That’s one reason why it’s unclear how many people have actually contracted the disease since some people may not even have had enough symptoms to think they needed to get tested.
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