On fifth anniversary, St. Alexius doctors recall fear, anxiety of treating nation’s 2nd COVID patient

Five years ago Friday, staff at Ascension St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates became part of history when they announced they were treating a patient with the second confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States.

“Nobody really knew about this COVID-19,” said Dr. Lynwood Jones, an infectious disease specialist for Ascension. “We’d had other COVID viruses. They gave you headaches. But satellites showed that China was building these giant hospitals. Five years later, we still don’t understand a heck of a lot about COVID-19 and its origins.”

Test results had revealed the truth to Jones and his fellow staffers the day before the press conference, but their experience started slightly earlier with what would be Illinois’ first case.

“I got a call from the (chief medical officer),” he said. “’We have a patient who was in Wuhan, China and she’s sick.’”

The Chicago woman in her 60s had returned to O'Hare International Airport on Jan. 13 from visiting family in China. She began developing symptoms about three or four days later. Her regular physician was on staff at St. Alexius and referred her to the emergency department there.

“Who would have thunk it, that we had a worldwide pandemic and the person is in Hoffman Estates,” Jones reflected.

When the woman’s husband later developed symptoms, he joined her in isolation at St. Alexius, becoming the sixth confirmed case in the country.

While the U.S. didn’t yet have the antiviral resources now available for COVID patients, what the nation did have was a high level of regular, supportive medical care. On Feb. 7, the Chicago husband and wife were discharged before the March outbreak that closed schools and businesses across the nation.

“Our system was good, but our system was overwhelmed,” Jones said.

He doesn’t believe there was a lull in February but that a lot of cases were being missed.

Nevertheless, St. Alexius was already helping build the nation’s knowledge of the new illness as public health agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention camped there for two weeks.

That early case revealed the degree of COVID’s infectiousness and that coughing could be a prime source of spread, said Dr. John Sullivan, medical director of emergency and trauma services at St. Alexius.

“This is where they wrote the policy for the rest of the nation,” Sullivan said.

He said the role St. Alexius played in early research remains a point of pride for all involved. And he gives a great share of the credit to Jones for the hospital’s approach throughout the pandemic.

“He was the man,” Sullivan said of Jones. “He was hand in hand with the CDC. He was the guy who really walked people through the fire of COVID.”

Both physicians were impressed by the speed with which vaccines were developed in 2020.

“Usually it takes vaccines years to come about, but this was rapid and that was good,” Jones said. “There was a big push to develop the vaccine. The problem was everyone was desperate. There was no good therapy.”

Jones believes nursing staffs were instrumental in getting hospitals and the nation through the crisis.

“I don’t think nursing gets enough credit for the pandemic,” he said. “I think everyone pulled together. We had people dying on ventilators. It was a mess. Patients’ families couldn’t visit. It was very stressful for everyone involved.”

Sullivan believes a bit of PTSD among medical workers was one of the pandemic’s legacies. His own emergency room nursing staff had experienced about 50% turnover two years after the start.

“To go back in time, the mood in the emergency department was one of a high level of concern, and perhaps even fear and anxiety,” he said. “It wasn’t like we didn’t know how to deal with infectious diseases, but this was a new one.”

Years later, it’s still the lingering unknowns Jones ponders.

“Did we learn a lot from this COVID?” he said. “Yes, but we still have a lot of gaps in our knowledge. It would be nice to know the actual origin of the disease. Because of the political situation in the world, it’s been an issue. The key is cooperation, because it impacts on all of us.”