Coronavirus patients in New Canaan report loss of sense, taste
The symptoms exhibited by those who test positive for the COVID-19 disease in New Canaan are not matching those that have been spelled out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New Canaan Health Director Jen Eielson said patients she has interviewed — every positive test in New Canaan — have all reported loss of taste, loss of smell, and severe lethargy.
Eielson said she is not getting reports of the high grade fever, one can have as a symptom, and spelled out by the CDC.
There were 62 cases in New Canaan as of Thursday morning, including six deaths from the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease. One patient is in intensive care, Eielson said. New Canaan Director of Emergency Operations Michael Handler gave the news about the sixth death in his nightly call on Wednesday, April 1, 2020.
“The majority there was some kind of travel link,” Eielson told the New Canaan Health and Human Services Commission during their meeting on Thursday, April 2, 2020, “either domestic or international.”
The New Canaan Men’s Club — of which at least the first two residents to die from the coronavirus were members — has been ruled out as being a factor of the link, New Canaan First Selectman Kevin Moynihan also said at the Health and Human Services Commission meeting on Thursday.
Dr. Harrison Pierce, chairman of the Health and Human Services Commission, said the loss of smell and taste “tells you how noxious this virus is,” comparing it early on to a sinus infection.
The exposure period has now been changed from the onset of symptoms to 48 hours before those symptoms appear, Eielson said.
Pierce said that is common in such infections.
“There is a lot of overlap going on,” Pierce also said. “People are testing positive for COVID, and the flu. You can have an active case of the flu, and be a carrier of COVID.”
A combination of a drug used to treat malaria, and Z-pack antibiotics was used on the last two New Canaan residents who died from the coronavirus. Eielson said by the time that was tried, both of the residents were on dialysis, and ventilators, and it was too late.
It is now believed, Pierce said, that the COVID-19 remains airborne for three hours, rather than 30 minutes.
“To be safe masks aren’t good enough,” he said. “Masks are better than nothing, but you have to be fully shielded.”
“That is why isolation is so important,” he said; A message Eielson said New Canaan residents are hearing.
“Our community has listened,” she said, “and there isn’t a link between this case, and a case around the corner.”
Houses in New Canaan are often large enough that a family member who is suspected of having the COVID-19 disease can remain alone in a few rooms, away from others.
“People are self-isolating,” she said. “The problem is high density areas,” she said.