Coronavirus

Coronavirus News: Doctor who contracted Ebola: 'I FEAR COVID-19'

ByToby Hershkowitz WABC logo

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

NEW YORK (WABC) -- The New York doctor who made international headlines when he contracted Ebola shared a simple, yet powerful, message on Twitter:

"I SURVIVED EBOLA. I FEAR COVID-19," tweeted Dr. Craig Spencer, Director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.

Spencer became known on the world stage when he was the first in New York to be diagnosed with Ebola. He contracted it while helping sick patients in the West African nation of Guinea during the outbreak in 2014.

Monday, Spencer shared an illuminating, visceral view into the world of our medical professionals on the front lines fighting Coronavirus in a 17-part Twitter thread.

"Walk in for your 8am shift, the calm of the early morning streets is immediately transformed," he writes. "There is a cacophony of coughing. You stop. Mask up. Walk in."

Spencer's account brings to life the frenetic panic within the hospital, patient after patient with the same symptoms, and the extreme challenge of healing others while doctors experience their own fatigue, stress and fear.

"Two patients, in rooms right next to each other, both getting a breathing tube," he writes. "It's not even 10am yet."

Spencer's thread walks us through a typical day in the ER that gets more difficult as time goes on.

"Sometime in the afternoon you recognize you haven't drank any water. You're afraid to take off the mask. It's the only thing that protects you," he writes.

A powerful reminder about how much heroes like Spencer, and the thousands of medical professionals on the front lines of this war, need our support.

"We were too late to stop this virus," he Tweets. "Full stop. But we can slow its spread."