Covid nurse says some dying patients are still refusing to believe virus is real: ‘This can’t be happening’

US has recorded more than 248,000 deaths due to the coronavirus outbreak, which has been repeatedly downplayed by President Trump

Emergency room patients in the US often don’t want to believe Covid-19 is real even after testing positive for the virus, according to a South Dakota nurse.

Jodi Doering spoke out in a series of tweets as cases in the US topped 11 million, expressing concern that her coronavirus patients are spending time when they should be talking to their loved ones instead filled with denial, anger and hatred. 

Ms Doering works as an emergency room nurse in South Dakota. On 15 November, she began a series of tweets talking about her dismay at patients refusing to believe they are infected with the coronavirus – or that the disease even exists. Since then, her tweets have gone viral, being shared online by hundreds of thousands of people.

“I think the hardest thing to watch is that people are still looking for something else and they want a magic answer and they don’t want to believe that Covid is real … their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening, it’s not real’. 

"When they should be spending time Facetiming their families, [instead] they are filled with anger and hatred. It just made me really sad, I just can’t believe that those are going to be their last thoughts and words,” Ms Doering told CNN’s New Day programme.

The nurse said that people often look for alternative explanations, suggesting their symptoms could be the result of influenza or pneumonia. There are even examples where people said it might be a lung cancer, she said.  

She revealed that when someone tries to reason with those patients and ask if they wish to speak to anyone - their families or partners or friend – they say no because they think they are going to be fine but “we know where that’s going to head” and it “makes you sad, mad and frustrated.”

But she added that they also have patients who are grateful and thankful for the care they received.  

In her tweets, Ms Doering said that while sitting on her couch with her dog on her night off from the hospital, she can’t help “but think of the Covid patients the last few days.”  

“The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath … They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that stuff because they don’t have Covid because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens. And I can’t stop thinking about it,” she tweeted.  

She said, “these people really think this isn’t going to happen to them.”

“Then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated … It’s like a f***ing horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll. You just go back and do it all over again. Which is what I will do for the next three nights,” she had tweeted.

The outgoing president Donald Trump has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the coronavirus outbreak, rejecting calls for a lockdown and suggesting the virus would go away on its own. 

According to the US’s leading immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci, the president has not attended a coronavirus taskforce meeting in “several months”. 

The US has had 11.2 million cases of coronavirus so far, according to Johns Hopkins University, and reported almost 248,000 deaths. Both figures rank its outbreak as the worst in the world, with India second on 8.8m cases.