Doctor shares 'surreal' experience with coronavirus patient in denial

A US doctor has shared his ‘surreal’ experience while treating a patient infected with coronavirus who refused to believe the deadly virus was real.

Ryan Marino, an emergency physician and medical toxicologist at Cleveland’s University Hospital in the US spoken of his shocking experience recently in a series of tweets.

In the tweets, Dr Marino revealed that he had been treating a patient who denied the virus was real and accused him of falsifying test results.

“I’ve been called a lot of names and accused of a lot of things by ER patients but it’s surreal to have a patient accuse me of falsifying their COVID result,” Dr Marino tweeted to his following of almost 30,000.

“Bc [because] they don’t believe the virus is real - as I’m actively trying to keep them from dying from multi organ failure from COVID.”

Dr Marino followed up the tweet by adding this was not a critique of the patient: “who needed help and had been lied to by others”.

“But a critique of the fact that we live in a time where people are willing to deny their own reality to fit an imaginary narrative,” he said.

‘I always take care of any patient’

Dr Marion told Yahoo News Australia that “these are surreal times when people are denying things that are right in front of them”.

“As an emergency doctor, I will always take care of any patient no matter what their political beliefs are, even if they are denying what’s happening,” Dr Marino said.

Many replied to Dr Marino’s original tweet, some of those who responded were doctors too, who also shared their experiences in the pandemic.

Dr Haitham Ahmed, another doctor in the US who specialises in cardiology, shared a few examples of how some of his patients have reacted to testing positive for COVID-19.

While some, like the patient Dr Marino treated, completely denied that coronavirus is real, others downplayed the risk COVID-19 posed, Dr Athmed said.

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COVID-19 is very real, there are now more than five million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, with 328,079 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins data.

This is a new disease which is wreaking havoc on the world and scientists and medical professionals are scrambling to understand it, all while governments weigh up their options on how to best tackle the disease.

Why some are reluctant to accept reality of pandemic

It has left many wondering how people could deny the veracity of the pandemic.

In some cases there is a justifiable reason for someone to be reluctant to accept this pandemic and reject the notion it is an elaborate conspiracy, or something of that nature.

“When people suffer loss of control or feel threatened, it makes them more vulnerable to believing conspiracies,” Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook wrote for The Conversation.

“Unfortunately, this means that pandemics have always been breeding grounds for conspiracy theories, from antisemitic hysteria during the Black Death to today’s 5G craze.”

The 5G conspiracy has spread like wildfire online since the pandemic started, as the Richard J Evans wrote for the New Statesmen, despite there being no proof that the phone masts were linked to the virus.

“Medical commentators have pointed out that mobile phone networks are essential for organising the fight against the epidemic and attacking them is not just counterproductive, it’s also dangerous,” he wrote.

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