A doctor in Washington state who treated the country's first coronavirus patient thinks the virus has been circulating "unchecked" around the United States for "several weeks."
"We had real challenges initially," Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips told CNBC. "I think it's one of the reasons we're seeing these hot spots pop up around the country is because we simply didn't know this had already hit our shores."
She added, cases will increase when testing is expanded and labs uncover previously hidden instances of the disease.
Compton-Phillips, the chief clinical officer at Providence St. Joseph Health, ended up treating the patient, a 35-year-old Washington man, who landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 15, coming in from the coronavirus epicenter in Wuhan, China.
She said the hospital took an "overkill" approach in the man's treatment while presuming he was suffering from COVID-19 until proven otherwise, and he has recovered and was discharged from the hospital.
He was put in an isolation room in a "gurney with plastic around it, so he wouldn't contaminate anything," Compton-Phillips told CNBC, and explained the man's symptoms progressed from being like those of a common cold to shortness of breath and a cough. An X-ray confirmed viral pneumonia, and he was put on an experimental antiviral treatment.
Compton-Phillips also said the delay in testing also is causing serious issues for people treating coronavirus patients.
"Some of our tests are getting sent to CDC in Atlanta, and it's taking a while to get them back," Compton-Phillips said. "The first couple [of] patients it was only taking a day or two. And now it seems to be taking about a week to get the test results back."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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