The Conversation (0)
Sinead Butler
Apr 29, 2021
Health professionals share their stories about diagnosing Covid deniers with Covid.
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With over 150 million cases, three million deaths worldwide and a number of global lockdowns over the past year, the coronavirus pandemic has affected everybody in its own way - yet there are still those out there that still believe the entire thing is a hoax.
But what happens when a Covid denier finds out they actually have Covid?
Izzi Sparks asked this question to doctors on Reddit and received an overwhelming response - with more than 70,000 upvotes and 19,000 comments - from health professionals who shared their own experiences.
Here are some of the best responses:
- “ER doc chiming in. They told me I was wrong. Obviously, there’s no way they had Covid despite coming into the ER for shortness of breath, cough, and fevers. When I mentioned that their wife who was several rooms down also had Covid, their response was: oh, that makes sense because she always gets sick. When I asked how it made sense that they wouldn’t have Covid with the same symptoms I was told that it was because they were overall healthy and only took their mask off to eat and drink in the casino 🙃”
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- “I had a lady who was maxed out on high flow (next step is breathing tube) who still refused she had Covid and was holding a negative test in her hand that she had taken a week prior.”
- “I work on a Covid unit and I ran into a patient like this. They’d tell me over and over again about how they weren’t really sick and about how I didn’t need to be gowned up in PPE. They even tried to take my face shield off. If you test positive for Covid two times then you have Covid! People are crazy.”
- “I’m an anesthesiologist, and in our institution, we’re the ones tasked with intubating Covid suspects / positive patients who would otherwise die without ventilatory support. And holy hell, there are a lot of patients who don’t believe Covid is real (most of them believe that it’s just an elaborate lie that Doctors use to label random patients to mooch money off them). Some of them scream at us (in whatever capacity their diseased lungs can allow them to), some outright refuse intubation (in which case they die several hours later from respiratory failure). It’s emotionally taxing having to face that every shift.”
- “Still had to treat her despite her accusing me of hiding the real diagnosis from her and doing something to make her sicker. Love my job.”
“As an anesthesiologist, by the time someone’s calling for us it’s for intubation and the patient is in no condition to deny anything. Honestly, it’s usually the family that’s the issue and that needs to be escorted from the room.”
- “Infectious disease doctor here. Seen about 450-500 Covid patients in the hospital since it all started. Only one patient ever accused me of using the nasal swab to give him Covid (along with a microchip). A handful have ranted nonstop about China. Everyone else has been sick enough to accept it, but lots still refuse the idea of vaccination even after being in the ICU.”
As one person in the thread perfectly summarised: “It’s difficult to argue with a genius but it’s impossible to argue with an idiot.”