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Coronavirus News: New York City hospital opens new post-COVID-19 care center

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Mount Sinai opens post-COVID-19 care center

A New York City hospital has opened a new center designed specifically to treat patients with lingering COVID-19 symptoms.

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- A New York City hospital has opened a new care center designed specifically to treat patients with lingering COVID-19 symptoms.

Ed Hornick was diagnosed with COVID-19 in mid-March and spent a night in a London ER where he was living at the time.

But the virus continues to plague him with memory loss, brain fog and constant fatigue.

"It's been three months now, why haven't I gotten better, why am I still fatigued, why do my lungs still hurt even though i'm testing negative," Hornick said.

The 40-year-old online news editor is hardly alone.

As many as 5-15% of patients are dealing with lingering issues according to experts at the Mount Sinai Health System

"This is a real thing, our data categorically shows it's a real thing," David Putrino said.

Putrino is a doctor of neuroscience and the Director of Rehabilitation Innovation at Mount Sinai.

"These individuals are experiencing fatigue, dizziness, nausea, GI symptoms, pain ... spine and chest," Putrino said.

To help these long haulers, Mount Sinai opened the first of its kind center for post-COVID-19 care in Union Square.

"Everyone is coming together from all specialities to discuss the best way to manage these people who are coming in with all over the map symptoms," Putrino said.

It turns out that many of these patients skew younger.

The median age is about 36-38 years old, and in most cases, they didn't have a severe case of COVID-19.

Which shows that there is still so much we don't know about this virus.

"So many stories have been focused on people dying and being on ventilators," Hornick said. "What happens when you're a long hauler like me?"

Hornick wants to not only find out, but he hopes to get better by enrolling in the new post-COVID-19 care center in the next several weeks.

WATCH EYEWITNESS TO A PANDEMIC (Episode 4)

It overwhelmed the health care industry, it put millions out of work, it drowned social services in an ocean of need and threatened the food supply Americans had long since taken for granted. At the apex of the crisis and for the weeks that followed, no part of life, or even what followed life, was spared.