主题：畜群免疫炸了 -- 葡萄干

A Chicago nurse returned to work after recovering from coronavirus. His cough came back. He tested 2 more times and got different results.

Day after day, Daniel Ortiz walks into a hospital and treats patients who are struggling with the coronavirus. He hoped he wouldn’t test positive for the virus. But it was, he felt, inevitable.

That fear came true, not once, but twice.

Ortiz’s ordeal started in March, when he was assigned to the COVID-19 unit at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. Although escaping exposure felt impossible, he took measures to protect his wife, carefully removing contaminated clothing before entering their home and sleeping on the couch.

Still, a coronavirus test in late March came back positive.

“It felt like somebody was constantly hitting me in the head with a hammer,” said Ortiz, who returned to work in early April. At the time, he said, protocol to return to work did not include further testing. Nurses could go back once symptoms subsided after seven days. “I go right to the place that got me sick, that took my power, that took everything.”

Ortiz is one of thousands of people working in Illinois health care systems who have been infected with the virus. Eight have died, according to the state Health Department. He and other nurses who have tested positive for the coronavirus told the Tribune they worry about getting sick again.

Last week, Ortiz’s cough returned. Under new hospital policy, he was tested twice before he could return to work this time.

The first result came back negative. But on Wednesday, two days later, he tested positive.

“I feel like I kind of had a hold on this, I felt like I could control it,” he said. “But today, I just feel like I’m defeated. I’m at the mercy of the virus.”

Susan Bleasdale, medical director of infection control at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, said while she could not specifically comment on Ortiz’s situation, false negatives are possible and could be caused by an insufficient specimen, among other reasons. In this case, it could be that Ortiz had the coronavirus in his body for weeks. She said people often have the virus for several weeks.

Mariellen Bardahl, a nurse at a suburban hospital, tested positive March 25. She woke up with a 102.5 fever a day after screening emergency room visitors. Her bout with the virus included headaches that made her weep, and one night she fainted in her bathroom.

Finally feeling better, she returned to work Tuesday, nearly four weeks after her confirmed result.

“I’m ready and willing, and I’m just going to take my precautions,” she said. “It’s my duty, and it’s in me to want to help, so I really can’t wait to go help and just be careful.”

While reinfection is unlikely, Bleasdale said it is not impossible.

Because of recent cases where people have tested positive multiple times, the UIC health system is testing more often, she said.

“If there’s more people that this is happening to, this is going to tell us whether or not people can get reinfected,” Bleasdale said. “I think the big message is there’s still a lot of unknowns, but we’re getting data, day by day, moment by moment, that’s helping us.”

Although many discussions about reopening the country include an assumption that some people will be less vulnerable to the coronavirus after having it, experts say there is much we do not know about immunity.

“We are in this time period where we’re going to learn more about whether people are protected,” said Bleasdale.

Hospital policies vary as far as when and how nurses can return to work. Many follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regulations for health care workers, with strategies for a test-based return and one without testing. If tests are not used, workers may return to work after three days without a fever and fever-reducing medications, or if seven days have passed since the onset of symptoms. Otherwise, improvement of symptoms and two consecutive negative COVID-19 tests administered at least 24 hours apart is recommended.

Some nurses shared concerns about using up sick time during a crisis many expect to last for months. One nurse, who did not want to give her name because she was worried about losing her job for speaking out, said she had already taken unpaid time after running out of sick time because of two separate quarantines.

SherriLynn Smith, a nurse at Lurie Children’s Hospital, tested positive in early April.

Working at the children’s hospital, she hoped that more telehealth appointments and fewer pediatric patients with the coronavirus might mean avoiding exposure.

“Both my husband and I were very scared that if I got it, it would shut my lungs down,” said Smith, who has had pneumonia before.

Since her positive result, it has been “this up-and-down roller coaster of you’re feeling better, you’re feeling worse.” Fighting COVID-19, she said, is “both not as bad as I thought it would be, and the worst thing I’ve ever had, all at the same time.”

After weeks with the virus, she has experienced shortness of breath and still is coughing.

“I try to wash off the counters in the kitchen, and it puts me down for three hours,” she said.

She had hoped to go back to work this week, but the exhaustion dashes her plans of returning.

Ortiz had been taking his temperature each night. Every day, he readied himself to return to the hospital, where he often leaves a shift crying. He got into nursing to save lives, and now he fights a virus without a cure. He watches people die. Each time, he feels he’s failed.

As he awaited his more recent test results, he watched people protest orders to stay home and rally for the reopening of businesses.

“It’s like a slap in the face,” Ortiz said. “I ask myself, is that what my life and health is worth to people, a haircut?”

从冠状病毒中康复后，一名芝加哥护士返回工作岗位。他的咳嗽又回来了。他测试了2次以上，并得到了不同的结果。

日复一日，丹尼尔·奥尔蒂斯（Daniel Ortiz）走进医院，为正遭受冠状病毒困扰的患者提供治疗。他希望自己不会对该病毒呈阳性反应。但是他觉得这是不可避免的。

这种恐惧实现了，不是一次，而是两次。

Ortiz的苦难始于3月，当时他被分配到芝加哥伊利诺伊大学医院的COVID-19病房。尽管逃脱暴露是不可能的，但他还是采取了保护妻子的措施，在进入家中并在沙发上睡觉之前，小心地脱掉被污染的衣服。

尽管如此，三月下旬的冠状病毒测试仍呈阳性。

“感觉就像有人不断用锤子砸我的头，”奥尔蒂斯说。他于4月初返回工作岗位。他说，当时恢复工作的协议不包括进一步的测试。症状在7天后消失后，护士可以回去。 “我直奔那个让我生病，夺走了力量，夺走了一切的地方。”

Ortiz是在伊利诺伊州卫生保健系统工作的数千名已感染该病毒的人之一。根据国家卫生部的数据，已有八人死亡。他和其他冠状病毒检测呈阳性的护士告诉《论坛报》，他们担心再次生病。

上周，奥尔蒂斯的咳嗽又来了。根据新的医院政策，他这次接受了两次检查，然后才能恢复工作。

第一个结果是负面的。但是两天后的星期三，他的测试呈阳性。

他说：“我觉得自己对此有所把握，感觉自己可以控制。” “但是今天，我只是觉得自己被击败了。我受病毒的摆布。”

伊利诺伊大学医院与卫生科学系统感染控制的医学主管Susan Bleasdale说，尽管她无法具体评论Ortiz的情况，但假阴性可能是由标本不足引起的，其中包括其他原因。在这种情况下，可能是Ortiz体内已经携带冠状病毒达数周之久。她说人们经常感染这种病毒达数周之久。

郊区医院的护士Mariellen Bardahl于3月25日检测出阳性。她在筛查急诊室访客后每天醒来102.5发烧。她因感染病毒而头痛，使她哭泣，有一天晚上，她在浴室昏倒了。

终于好起来了，她在确认结果后近四个星期，于星期二重返工作岗位。

她说：“我已经准备好并且愿意，我会采取预防措施。” “这是我的责任，想要帮助是我的责任，所以我真的迫不及待想去寻求帮助，只是要小心。”

尽管再感染的可能性不大，但布莱斯代尔说这并非不可能。

她说，由于最近人们多次进行阳性测试的情况，UIC卫生系统的测试频率更高。

布莱斯代尔说：“如果有更多的人正在发生这种情况，这将告诉我们人们是否可以被再次感染。” “我认为最大的信息是仍然有很多未知数，但是我们每天，每时每刻都在获取数据，这对我们有所帮助。”

尽管许多关于重新开放该国的讨论都假设某些人在感染冠状病毒后将较不易感染，但专家说，我们对免疫力的了解还很多。

Bleasdale说：“我们正处于这个时期，我们将更多地了解人们是否受到保护。”

医院政策的变化取决于护士何时以及如何恢复工作。许多人遵循疾病预防控制中心针对医护人员的法规，制定了基于测试的退货策略和一项未经测试的策略。如果不进行检查，则工人可能会在三天后没有发烧和减少发烧的药物，或者如果自症状发作已经过去了七天，就可以重新工作。否则，建议改善症状并至少间隔24小时进行两次连续的阴性COVID-19测试。

一些护士对在许多人希望持续数月之久的危机中用尽病假感到担忧。一位不愿透露姓名的护士，因为担心出外打工而失去工作，她说，由于两次隔离，她在用完病假后已经花了无偿的时间。

Lurie儿童医院的护士SherriLynn Smith在4月初测试呈阳性。

她希望在儿童医院工作，希望更多的远程医疗预约和更少的小儿冠状病毒患者可能意味着避免暴露。

“我和我丈夫都非常害怕，如果我得到了它，它将使我的肺部关闭，”史密斯说。他以前患有肺炎。

自从她取得积极的成绩以来，这一直是“您的这种过山车感觉好多了，感觉好多了。”她说，与COVID-19战斗时，“同时没有我想的那么糟，还有我有过的最糟糕的事情。”

感染病毒数周后，她出现了呼吸急促并且仍在咳嗽。

她说：“我试图清洗厨房的柜台，这使我失望了三个小时。”

她曾希望本周能重返工作岗位，但精疲力尽使她重返工作的计划破灭了。

奥尔蒂斯每天晚上都在测量体温。每天，他准备回到医院，在那里他常常轮班哭泣。他开始护理以挽救生命，现在他正在与一种无法治愈的病毒作斗争。他看着人们死了。每次他都觉得自己失败了。

在等待他最近的测试结果时，他看着人们抗议命令留在家里并集会以重新营业。

奥尔蒂斯说：“这就像打耳光。” “我问自己，理发对我来说，我的生活和健康对人们来说值得什么吗？”