The Coronavirus Outbreak ›
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated July 23, 2020
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What is school going to look like in September?
- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
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Is the coronavirus airborne?
- The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
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What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
- Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
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What’s the best material for a mask?
- Scientists around the country have tried to identify everyday materials that do a good job of filtering microscopic particles. In recent tests, HEPA furnace filters scored high, as did vacuum cleaner bags, fabric similar to flannel pajamas and those of 600-count pillowcases. Other materials tested included layered coffee filters and scarves and bandannas. These scored lower, but still captured a small percentage of particles.
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Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
- So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
Within a week, she, too, was admitted to Methodist after becoming short of breath.
Neither daughter could see their parents: Methodist, like many other hospitals around the country, blocked visitors to contain the virus’s spread. The couple were isolated in separate buildings, and could not communicate with each other. Mr. Roberts was gravely ill, and his wife’s condition was deteriorating. Ms. Roman, an oil industry engineer, tried to fill the gap.
“I’ve known for a very long time that when the time comes, I get to step up,” said Ms. Roman, 38. “I have to take care of my parents. I have to take care of my sister. I just didn’t expect it all to converge at once.”
After about a week in the hospital, there was a crisis: Ms. Roberts became delirious and repeatedly pulled the tubing that supplied oxygen out from under her nose. Doctors put restraints on her, stationed a sitter outside her room and called Ms. Roman to say they thought her mother’s turmoil might be a result of medication side effects combined with her illness.
Ms. Roman called her sister in tears. “I said, ‘I’m scared, Lainie, I’m scared.’ She said, ‘I am, too.’”
After Ms. Roberts’s steroid dose was cut, the symptoms resolved over a couple of days. “They said that I had said that I was going to kill myself,” Ms. Roberts recalled the doctors telling her. “This is not me.”
Her breathing gradually improved, and she did not need a ventilator. A few days later, she said she was keeping herself going by imagining a trip on her bucket list: taking her husband to see macaws in the Amazon.
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Doctors called Ms. Roman with updates on her father and requests to give consent for procedures, including a catheter for emergency kidney dialysis. He received steroids, which work against inflammation, and experimental medications. Mr. Roberts was put under deep sedation and given drugs to paralyze him so the ventilator could work more effectively.
There were some glimmers of hope — Mr. Roberts’s lungs seemed to be healing — but whenever the medical team reduced the sedation over the next few days, his blood pressure rose and his heart raced, signs of agitation. On July 9, Dr. Mukhtar Al-Saadi called Ms. Roman with an update. “It was very difficult for us to wake him up meaningfully to see if he can breathe on his own,” the doctor said.
‘Believe Me, It’s Real’
Last week, after she was discharged and just about to be wheeled out of the hospital, Ms. Roberts received a terrifying call. Her husband was still not waking up or moving, and doctors believed a massive stroke or another neurological problem was the likely reason. Ms. Roberts and her daughters gathered that night, discussing the difficult decisions they might have to make.
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“Do we just let him go, if he’s brain-dead?” Sheryl Roberts said they wondered. As they considered what the “very bright, very proud man” would want, Ms. Roman said, the three women wept.
A brain scan the next day showed that he had not had a stroke, but additional studies were delayed to avoid exposing the few available technicians to the virus. On Friday, Dr. R. Glenn Smith, a neurology attending physician, performed neuromuscular testing that indicated severe damage to Mr. Roberts’s nerve coverings.
About a dozen other patients at the hospital have developed a paralysis or profound weakness that doctors believe may be a complication of the virus, according to Dr. Smith. Doctors had already begun treating Mr. Roberts with a medication used for Guillain-Barre syndrome, a similar paralyzing disorder that occurs rarely after some viral infections.
They don’t know how much function he will be able to regain; he has begun showing some limited progress. On Tuesday a staff member brought a tablet into Mr. Roberts’s room and made a video connection. “He nodded, I chatted,” Ms. Roberts said. “He blew me a kiss.”
While her husband waits for a bed in a long-term acute care unit to begin rehabilitation, he remains on a ventilator. Even if there are no more challenges, his recovery will take months, Dr. Smith said.
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“It’s going to be slow,” Ms. Roman said. “It’s not going to be easy.” But, she added, “it seems like he’s still Dad upstairs so I’ll take it.”
The family’s ordeal has made her mother more outspoken about the toll of the pandemic. The misinformation and confusion about the virus that she sees on social media scares her, she said. “The ignorance kills me. ‘It’s really not that bad, it’s not really fatal.’”
She said she now responds to such statements. “I’m always happy to show right up and say, ‘You know, I just lived through it — believe me, it’s real.’”
She still requires oxygen, and Elaine Roberts is taking care of her, cooking meals, helping her shower and maintaining her breathing device. When her parents were both gone, she assumed new household tasks. “My youngest has proved to me she’s far more capable of things than I ever dreamed,” Ms. Roberts said. “I’m so proud of her.”
On Monday, Elaine Roberts has a coronavirus test scheduled. If it is negative, she hopes to go back to work at Randalls.
