What It's Like to Have COVID-19: Infected Doctor Tells CBN News His Faith Carries Him Through

Steve Warren
03-16-2020

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ABOVE: Dr. Yale Tung Chen spoke with CBN News on Newswatch via Skype from Madrid about his own fight with the coronavirus

An emergency room physician who got infected with COVID-19 is giving his social media followers a day-by-day blog of how the virus's symptoms are affecting him.

Dr. Yale Tung Chen is an emergency doctor at Hospital Universitario La Paz in Madrid, Spain. The 35-year-old got infected while treating patients at his hospital.

While living in quarantine in his home since Sunday, Chen, 35, is tweeting out ultrasounds of his lungs along with commentary about the symptoms he's experiencing.

Chen says he wants his experience to be educational. Chen's symptoms have been relatively mild. "It's no more than a common and regular flu infection," he told CBN News. His symptoms have included dry cough, weakness, low-grade fever, and especially a headache.

Experts say the virus affects everyone differently and younger people often have milder symptoms. 

Chen tells CBN News he believes this is now a known virus that the medical community has learned how to treat. So his message is this: "To stay calm, to follow all the instructions from the health ministry, the government."   

Dr. Chen is a Christian and he says his faith is carrying him through. "It means everything. I wouldn't stay that calm," if it wasn't for his beliefs, he told CBN News. 

You can follow Chen's progress here.

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Coronavirus: What You Need to Know

Chen is not the only one sharing with others their fight against the coronavirus.  A man in Wuhan, China was sick for three weeks with the disease.

Tiger Ye, 21, told The Guardian he was diagnosed on Jan. 17 and was cleared by Feb. 7.  He told the newspaper the illness was at its worst from Jan. 21 to Jan. 26. 

People who have been infected with COVID-19 are recovering. As of Friday, the total number of known cases worldwide stood at more than 137,000 - but that's just for people that have been tested and confirmed. There have been more than 5,000 deaths due to the disease.  

However, the total number of people who have recovered from the virus currently stands at almost 70,000. 

John Hopkins University has created a website where the medical data by country is added and is regularly updated.   
 
For those who do contract COVID-19, roughly 20 percent will experience severe-to-critical symptoms, but the vast majority do not. That's one reason why it's unclear how many people have actually contracted the disease since some people may not even have had enough symptoms to think they needed to get tested.

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About The Author

Steve Warren is a senior multimedia producer for CBN News. Warren has worked in the news departments of television stations and cable networks across the country. In addition, he also worked as a producer-director in television production and on-air promotion. A Civil War historian, he authored the book The Second Battle of Cabin Creek: Brilliant Victory. It was the companion book to the television documentary titled Last Raid at Cabin Creek currently streaming on Amazon Prime. He holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in Communication from the University of
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