The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

A18 eZ re THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAy, MARCH 3 , 2020

THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

BY MIN JOO KIM

seoul — At first, the 47-year-old
restaurant owner thought he was
just tired from work. Doctors
prescribed some cold medicine.
But his headache worsened. He
started to run a fever.
“I still didn’t think I had con-
tracted the coronavirus,” Kim Se-
ung-hwan recalled. “I only saw
that on the news about China,
and I have not traveled outside
South Korea recently.”
It was in mid-February, before
clusters of coronavirus infection
were reported around his home-
town, Yeongcheon, about
180 miles southeast of Seoul. But
the region would quickly become
the center of the country’s out-
break.
Kim’s condition did not im-
prove, and he went to a bigger
hospital in nearby Daegu city on
Feb. 18. At that point, coronavirus
cases were starting to appear
nearby. Just hours before Kim
arrived at the hospital, the first
coronavirus case was confirmed
in Daegu.
Nurses in protective gear
whisked Kim away to an isolation
ward.
Kim’s account — of infection,
fear and recovery — is just one
story among tens of thousands as
the coronavirus spreads around
the world. But it offers a window
into the arc of the disease for
some patients and the toll it
exacts on the body and mind.
Kim was well aware that the
virus had claimed lives, including
some like him: the relatively
young and healthy. As he grew
sicker, the thoughts began to
creep in: Would the covid-19 dis-
ease take him as well?
“Fears grew as I was left in the
dark about what the virus could
do to my body,” he told The
Washington Post in a telephone
interview. “I could not but won-
der if it could threaten my life.”
His first moments in the hospi-
tal were a blur of activity.
Because he displayed pneumo-
nia-like symptoms, he was quar-

antined in a negative-pressure

room that keeps the air from

seeping outside. Doctors took

swabs from his nose and mouth

to test for covid-19.

Kim waited for the results in

the isolation ward. “The only

thing I could hear was the buzz-

ing noise of the ventilator,” Kim

said. He was not sure if his

headache was a symptom of the

virus or from snowballing con-

cerns about possible infection in

his family home and his restau-

rant.

Kim and a dozen other patients

in Daegu and the surrounding

North Gyeongsang province test-

ed positive, among the first cases

confirmed in South Ko-

rea.

Now, the number of

coronavirus cases in

South Korea has reached

more than 4,200. Nearly

90 percent are in Daegu

and North Gyeongsang.

Kim watched cable

news in the hospital

ward as reports of coro-

navirus grew in South Korea and

beyond. The TV and his phone

were his links to the outside

world. All visitors were banned.

As he saw the news of the virus

spreading in his town, Kim’s

thoughts were with his wife and

daughter, who had taken care of

him at h ome. He r emem-

bered their worried eyes

on him tossing and turn-

ing in his bed from se-

vere pain.

He couldn’t sleep for

several nights in a row. “I

was so tired, but could

not fall asleep because of

the aches and pain felt

all over my body,” he

said.

He felt too hot in his bed.

It was an unpleasant kind of

heat — different from the feeling

after a sweaty game of badmin-

ton. The fever induced by the

coronavirus felt “achingly hot,”

Kim said. His body temperature

spiked above 100 degrees.

Doctors at the hospital pre-

scribed him antibiotics, other

medicine and intravenous fluids.

He was sent spare underwear

and towels from home, which he

lacked because he was hospital-

ized so abruptly. His family also

sent him fried kimchi and other

home-cooked dishes.

Four days into treatment, on

Feb. 21, the doctors said his lungs

had returned to normal. his

symptoms started to ease. His

fever broke. His head stopped

aching.

But the worries still raged. The

television he watched to distract

himself from the pain beamed

alerts of South Korea’s first death

from the coronavirus.

Would it cripple his body? Had

he infected his family and the

customers at his restaurant?

Immediately after Kim’s diag-

nosis, the provincial government

tracked down and published the

list of the places he had visited

during the four days since he

started displaying symptoms.

Health authorities in South Ko-

rea take those measures with

every patient to help the public

identify the risks.

The clinics Kim visited and his

seafood restaurant were listed

online and shut down for disin-

fection. His family and customers

at h is restaurant have been tested

for the virus. No relatives have

turned up positive. Neither has

anyone who visited the restau-

rant, he says, as far as he knows.

Kim’s health turned a corner

last week. He could walk around

inside the ward and started doing

light exercises.

He t ested negative for the virus

on Feb. 24 and again the next day.

On Wednesday, eight days after

he was diagnosed, he was re-

leased from the hospital.

“I was so relieved,” he said, “so

happy to be back surrounded by

my family.”

Kim is now on a self-imposed

14-day quarantine, staying in his

room and not dining with his wife

and daughter. “The doctors told

me I can go back to my daily life,

but the fear of reinfection still

lingers in my mind,” he said.

“Coping with the virus was like

a nightmare,” he said. “But in

hindsight, I realize I was one of

the lucky ones to have received

proper treatment.”

About 2,000 coronavirus pa-

tients were waiting for hospital

beds in Daegu as of Monday

morning, according to the city

authorities.

“I want to tell other patients

that the coronavirus can be beat-

en,” he said. “I have now fully

recovered and do push-ups in the

morning.”

[email protected]

Fever, fear and slow recovery: One man’s battle with coronavirus i n S. Korea

yoNHAP/AgeNCe FrANCe-Presse/geTTy ImAges

Medical workers in protective gear leave a hospital for patients infected with the coronavirus in Daegu, South Korea, on Sunday.

Kim

Seung-hwan

BY TAYLOR TELFORD

AND ABHA BHATTARAI

The panic began slowly, with
shoppers looking for face masks
and hand sanitizer. But it hit a
fever pitch over the weekend as
crowds descended on supermar-
kets and big-box stores, snapping
up cleaning supplies, toilet paper
and nonperishable foods to pre-
pare for the coronavirus.
“It has gotten crazier by the
day,” said a Ta rget employee who
fulfills online orders at a store in
Richmond.
“A lot of it is obviously panic-
buying, people stocking up on
eight gallons of water or 20 kinds
of soups. Items are selling out
immediately, as soon as they go
up on shelves,” said the employ-
ee, who, like others interviewed
for this story, spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity to talk freely.
The United States confirmed
its first two coronavirus deaths
over the weekend, sparking fears
of a broader outbreak that
prompted many Americans to
make a run on their local super-
market, pharmacy or warehouse
club. Long lines and bare shelves
were common, even in areas
without any known coronavirus
cases. A Ta rget store in Colma,
Calif., sold out of bottled water. A
Costco in San Francisco is out of
Clorox wipes. Home Depot is
limiting customers to 10 face
masks per person. Amazon,
meanwhile, is warning shoppers
that availability may be limited
on its Prime Now grocery-deliv-
ery service. (Amazon founder
and chief executive Jeff Bezos
owns The Washington Post.)
At Kings P harmacy in Manhat-
tan, the last shipment of Purell
sold out within an hour. Now
customers are showing up with
Internet recipes for homemade
hand sanitizers, leading to a
spike in sales of aloe vera gel and
rubbing alcohol.
“Everything is on back order,”
said Jones Chen, who owns the
Manhattan pharmacy. “ I’ve never
seen anything like this.”
He ran out of Purell at 1 p.m.
Thursday and got another
140 bottles at 6 p.m. An hour
later, they were gone. Also sold
out: disinfecting wipes from Wet
Ones, Clorox and Lysol. Sales of
regular hand soap, though —
which doctors say provides the
best line of defense — were about
the same.
The relentless spread of the
pneumonia-like virus tied to
more than 3,000 deaths world-
wide has set off the kind of
panic-buying normally reserved

for natural d isasters. But unlike a

hurricane, which delivers de-

struction within a relatively con-

fined window of time before

moving on, there is no end in

sight to this outbreak — and it’s

making shoppers crazy.

“Consumers’ irrational behav-

ior will certainly do more dam-

age than reality will,” said Allen

Adamson, a consumer brand

consultant who teaches at New

York University’s Stern School of

Business. “People are emotional-

ly driven and nervous, and noth-

ing makes them more nervous

than a threat they can’t see.”

Sales of medical masks have

risen 78 percent in the most

recent week, compared with the

same period last year, according

to Nielsen, a data tracking firm.

Also spiking are sales of hand

sanitizer (up 54 percent), ther-

mometers (34 percent), disinfec-

tant sprays (19 percent) and

dried beans (10 percent).

An employee at a Whole Foods

in Los Altos, Calif., said the store

was out of “pasta, beans, frozen

vegetables, hand sanitizer, toilet

paper, paper towels. “There’s a

little bottled water left,” she said.

“I’ve worked here 10 years, and

I’ve never seen anything like

this.”

The Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention has warned

that community spread of the

coronavirus in the United States

was inevitable and urged busi-

nesses, hospitals and communi-

ties to brace for impact. So far,

local transmission of the virus

has been concentrated in Califor-

nia and Washington state, where

it probably had been spreading

undetected for the past six

weeks, according to new re-

search. By Monday afternoon,

the U.S. death toll stood at six, all

in Washington state.

The outbreak has sickened

nearly 90,000 people in 60 coun-

tries since it emerged in Wuhan,

China, in December.

Because the virus has the po-

tential to metastasize into a glob-

al pandemic, the Department of

Homeland Security recommends

stockpiling a two-week supply of

food and water, as well as pre-

scription medications and non-

prescription remedies like pain

relievers and cough and cold

medicines. Social media posts

from around the world showed

shoppers crowding into stores,

forming long lines and climbing

shelves to snag the last remain-

ing items. Shoppers posted pic-

tures of packed parking lots,

barren shelves and signs warn-

ing of low or nonexistent inven-

tories.

Shelf-stable and frozen foods

were i n high demand. At a Trader

Joe’s market in Mountain View,

Calif., the freezer section was

cleared out of pizza and most

ready-made meals by Sunday

evening. There was no pasta or

rice left. One woman’s cart was

piled to the brim with frozen

mushroom ravioli. Another cart

was filled with six gallons of

milk.

“It’s been crazy like this for the

last three days,” said an employ-

ee, adding that the store set a

new sales record Saturday. He

said demand for canned tuna

was particularly high.

Supply chain experts said the

recent shortages are just the

beginning of what could be

months of coronavirus-related

shortfalls. Household necessities

and nonperishable foods are be-

ing hardest hit now, but U. S.

retailers could soon be dealing

with a scarcity of apparel and

electronics, as those sectors rely

heavily on Chinese factories, ac-

cording to Per Hong, a senior

partner at Kearney, a global man-

agement consulting firm.

“These near-term shortages

are going to have very long-term

implications with financial con-

sequences six months, 12 months

down the line,” he said.

Anxiety surrounding the virus

has rippled through global econ-

omies as investors fear its rapid

spread could bring more coun-

tries to a standstill. Last week, it

pushed U.S. stock markets into

their worst week since the 2008

financial crisis. B ut the makers of

quarantine-essential products,

biotechnology and pharmaceuti-

cal firms — including Clorox,

vaccine maker Moderna and

mask manufacturer 3M — have

seen their stocks rise. Vice Presi-

dent Pence is scheduled to visit

3M’s Minnesota headquarters

this week.

U.S. surgeon general Jerome

M. Adams took to Twitter on

Saturday to urge the public to

refrain from buying masks be-

cause a shortage could worsen

the outbreak.

“They are NOT effective in

preventing general public from

catching #coronavirus, but if

health care providers can’t get

them to care for sick patients, it

puts them and our communities

at risk,” Adams tweeted.

Amazon also has not been

immune to shortfalls. Many list-

ings for masks and hand sanitiz-

ers across t he e-commerce giant’s

platform say products are “cur-

rently unavailable.” What inven-

tory there is comes from third-

party sellers and at premium

pricing. A two-pack of 12-ounce

Equate hand sanitizers is listed

at $78.95, or $3.29 per fluid

ounce. That’s easily 19 times the

Walmart brand’s usual retail

price. There was only one left in

stock on Monday.

“There is no place for price

gouging on Amazon,” Amazon

spokeswoman Cecilia Fan told

The Post. “We are disappointed

that bad actors are attempting to

artificially raise prices on basic

need products during a global

health crisis and, in line with our

long-standing policy, have re-

cently blocked or removed tens

of thousands of offers. We c ontin-

ue to actively monitor our store

and remove offers that violate

our policies.”

Manufacturers say they are

trying to replenish shelves as

quickly as possible. Gojo Indus-

tries, the Akron, Ohio-based

company that makes Purell, has

“increased production signifi-

ca ntly” and has employees work-

ing overtime to deal with boom-

ing demand, said spokeswoman

Samantha Williams. The compa-

ny has 2,500 employees and

manufactures Purell at two

plants in Ohio and one in France.

“We are seeing a substantial

increase in demand,” she said in

an email. “We have experienced

several demand surges in the

past during other outbreaks.

This is on the higher end of the

spectrum but not unprecedent-

ed.”

On Friday, the Food and Drug

Administration reported the first

manufacturing shortage of a

drug due to the coronavirus.

Although the agency declined to

identify the drug, it confirmed

that the shortage is a result of

manufacturing freezes in China.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Jay greene in seattle and Christina

Passariello in san Fr ancisco

contributed to this report.

Long lines, low supplies: Panic sparks a buying frenzy

DUANe TANoUye/reUTers

Shoppers line up to buy supplies at a Costco store in Hono lulu on Friday. The Hawaii State Department of Health advised residents last

week to stock up on a 14-day supply of food, water and other necessities, though the state does not have any confirmed coronavirus cases.