South Dakota nurse says COVID-19 patients insist the virus isn’t real even as they’re dying from it

A South Dakota nurse who cares for COVID-19 patients says one of the hardest parts of her job is convincing a number of those who are critically ill that the deadly virus is actually real.

After sharing a thread of her experiences to Twitter over the weekend, nurse Jodi Doering appeared on CNN’s New Day on Monday to describe how many of her patients are still in denial about coronavirus, willing to believe almost anything else has made them sick.

‘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,’ she told the network. ‘People want it to be influenza, they want it to be pneumonia, we’ve even had people say, “I think it could be lung cancer.”’

She continued: ‘Even after the positive test results come back, they still don’t want to believe it.’

Doering added that, in some cases, her patients’ dying words have been: ‘This can’t be happening, it’s not real.’

Nurse Jodi Doering appeared on CNN’s New Day on Monday to describe how many of her patients are in denial about coronavirus, willing to believe almost anything else has made them sick.

Doering said she would ask the dying patients if they wanted her to help them call their loved ones, and they would shrug off the gesture, insisting that they’re fine.

However, she said she would see their oxygen levels dropping lower and lower, knowing things weren’t looking ‘fine’.

‘And when they should be spending time FaceTime-ing their families, they’re just filled with anger and hatred. I just can’t believe those are their last words,’ Doering added.

Doering said the delusions of some patients is taking a toll on health-care workers across the state.

‘It’s like a movie where the credits never roll,’ Doering said. ‘And it’s hard and sad, because every hospital, every nurse, every doctor in the state is seeing the same things.

‘There’s people get sick the same way, you treat them in the same way, they die in the same way and then you do it over again,’ she added.

She also noted that, as a healthcare professional, the last thing they think about regarding their patients is whether they’re a Democrat or a Republican. She said they focus only on how they can best help them.

‘Anybody who uses any chance to make this political makes any healthcare provider want to scream. Because at the end of the day, we just want to help,’ she said. 

‘And if we don’t get some help from the public as far as mask wearing and social distancing, there’s a thing on the internet right now that says “I’m not the first line of defense, I’m the last line of defense.” And it’s true in South Dakota.

‘By the time you get to me, and the team we work with, it might be too late for some, and that is heartbreaking,’ Doering continued.

Doering said in some cases, her patients’ dying words have been, ‘This can’t be happening, it’s not real'

Doering said in some cases, her patients’ dying words have been, ‘This can’t be happening, it’s not real’

South Dakota has averaged more than 1,000 new cases every day this month

South Dakota has averaged more than 1,000 new cases every day this month

South Dakota is one of the nation’s worst coronavirus hot spots, but the state’s Gov. Kristi Noem has routinely played down the severity of the virus and has refused to put a mask mandate or any substantial lockdown measures in place.

Along with North Dakota, the two states are considered the new US epicentre of the virus, recording the fastest moving per-captia case numbers in the nation, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University and the states’ own health departments.

South Dakota has recorded 65,381 confirmed cases and at least 644 deaths, the tracker shows. Its hospital system is currently at 64 percent capacity, while ICU beds are at 67 percent capacity, according to its health department.

The state has averaged more than 1,000 new cases every day this month, according to The New York Times, and deaths from Covid-19 have surged 74 percent in just the last two weeks.

‘We’re managing our patient loads, here right now … but the reality is, it’s not getting better,’ Doering told CNN.

South Dakota’s positivity rate is estimated at 50 percent to 60 percent, she said. ‘We have 880,000 people — it doesn’t take much to do the math on that to figure out how many of us are sick.’

South Dakota is one of the nation’s worst coronavirus hot spots, but the state’s Gov. Kristi Noem (above) has routinely played down the severity of the virus and has refused to put a mask mandate or any substantial lockdown measures in place

South Dakota is one of the nation’s worst coronavirus hot spots, but the state’s Gov. Kristi Noem (above) has routinely played down the severity of the virus and has refused to put a mask mandate or any substantial lockdown measures in place

The state has averaged more than 1,000 cases every day this month, according to The New York Times, and deaths from Covid-19 have surged 74 percent in just the last two weeks

The state has averaged more than 1,000 cases every day this month, according to The New York Times, and deaths from Covid-19 have surged 74 percent in just the last two weeks

Doering’s appearance on New Day came just two days after she penned a thread of tweets, lifting the lid on the apparent COVID-denial among a number of her sickest patients.

She began the thread by saying she had a night off from the hospital, but that still a number of patients remained on her mind.

‘As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days,’ the nurse wrote.

‘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 on 100% Vapotherm [oxygen],’ she wrote.

‘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.’

She continued: ‘These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them. And 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.’

Coronavirus cases in the US have topped 100,000 on a daily basis for 13 days in a row and nearly 70,000 people are currently hospitalized for the infection across the country.

With 69,455 people hospitalized as of Sunday, there are now 17 percent more people being treated for COVID-19 in US facilities than were at the previous peak of 599,499 hospitalizations in April.

In total, more than 11 million Americans have been infected and 246,236 have died of COVID-19.

Doering’s appearance on New Day came just two days after she penned a thread of tweets, lifting the lid on the apparent COVID-denial among a number of her sickest patients

Doering’s appearance on New Day came just two days after she penned a thread of tweets, lifting the lid on the apparent COVID-denial among a number of her sickest patients

Coronavirus cases in the US have topped 100,000 on a daily basis for 13 days in a row and nearly 70,000 people are currently hospitalized for the infection across the country

Coronavirus cases in the US have topped 100,000 on a daily basis for 13 days in a row and nearly 70,000 people are currently hospitalized for the infection across the country

On Sunday, the US recorded 133,045 new coronavirus cases and 616 fatalities. 

The average number of daily deaths hit its highest point since May on Saturday, and again on Sunday, according to DailyMail.com analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University – but the daily death toll is well below half its peak of more than 2,500 deaths on April 22.

However, top pandemic modelers at the University of Washington found last week that the odds a patient will die of coronavirus are declining, a trend they attribute to doctors learning how to better care for people with COVID-19.

In the absence of federal measures, at least a dozen states and cities – including North Dakota, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Chicago and Philadelphia – have newly implemented tighter restrictions aimed at slowing the ‘accelerating’ spread of coronavirus, as described by task force documents sent to states.

Across the nation, the number of people getting tested is reaching new heights, with a record of more than 1.65 million Americans getting tested on Sunday.

But infections continue to spike, pandemic ‘fatigue’ is rampant, and with colder temperatures and holidays approaching, public health experts are on edge with concern that the crisis will only worse, with one North Carolina expert predicting deaths will double over the winter.



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