LIFE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS
The ER Doctor Who Is Staying Away From His Family
A new series about how this pandemic affects our lives, our loved ones, our work, and our way of life
Life in the Time of Coronavirus is a new GEN series where we are interviewing people across the country who have had their lives upended or who are experiencing the stress of the unknown.
Shuhan He, MD, is a physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a frontline doctor treating coronavirus cases in the state since the eruption of what is known as the Biogen cluster, when more than 90 cases, including 77 in Massachusetts, were linked to a Boston meeting of the biotech company at the end of February.
We all knew about the Coronavirus early. Let’s be clear, I was worried about it. We had protocols early on dealing with Covid. At the time, it was still well controlled. We have protocols for SARS, MERS, Covid, and Ebola, so if people come from any countries where these are active, they get screened. If they have a fever and symptoms, they stay in the DECON [decontamination] room.
We had the protocol, and we were ruling cases out. If a patient came in off a plane from Wuhan with a cough, they…
