Dr. Christine Eady MannVerified account

We got our first positive COVID-19 test result in my office today. It was from a patient I did a “drive-by” test on yesterday. I’m going to share a bit about this because the story highlights some of the holes in what we are currently doing to slow the spread of the disease.

Identifying information removed. 1. Patient had recently traveled to a state with a moderate # of cases. Had no known direct contact with anyone who had COVID-19. Travel outside the US is no longer a marker for risk, and international travel bans are not an adequate answer.

2. The patient drove home in a private car. So the new Texas quarantine order from the governor that applies to air travel will absolutely miss cases coming in from outside Texas.

3. The patient’s symptoms were very mild: temperature no higher than 100.3, mild cough, no shortness of breath. So you can’t rely on symptom severity as a marker for illness. Stay safe y’all. We’re just getting started.

Can I ask what prompted the patient to seek care with such mild symptoms? Is testing currently available to you to a degree that you’re able to do that kind of testing for all the patients you think you ought to?

He asked to be tested due to the place he had traveled and the gradual onset of symptoms, which is typical for COVID-19. Most physicians and epidemiologists would prefer testing everyone so that we can track the disease properly, but my advice is to not seek testing...