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personal protective equipment, which typically includes eye protection, a respirator mask, gloves, a long gown and a head cap. The hospital had not tested him earlier because the C.D.C. guidelines at the time suggested that testing should be reserved for those who had recently traveled to China or come into close contact with someone believed to have the virus. Cai had not been there for years and to his knowledge had not been in contact with anyone who had tested positive. Now he thought they were just being thorough.
Balani was measured when she explained this plan — they wanted to rule it out — but after she left, Cai started Googling symptoms from his stretcher in the small room and asked his wife to do the same. He saw that his symptoms, which had intensified since earlier that day, matched up almost perfectly with those of Covid-19: cough, heart palpitations, fever, diarrhea, chills, fatigue, shortness of breath. It would almost have to be coronavirus, except that there was no way it could be coronavirus: What were the odds that he, James Cai, 32-year-old mediocre basketball player, doting father, conscientious physician assistant, intrepid foodie, would be the first person in all of New Jersey to come down with it?
Cai hated being in that room on the emergency-room floor, where all night long he could hear people crying out in pain or wailing in grief. He tried to tune it out, to take in the consoling texts from friends who knew he was at the hospital. His fever kept spiking to around 102 degrees. The isolation only made him feel worse.
The next day, the hours passed slowly as Cai awaited the results of his test — until that evening, when Cai looked up at the television in his room. The evening news was showing a large image of a post that had just shown up on the Twitter feed of the governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy. “Tonight, Acting Governor @LtGovOliver and I are announcing the first presumptive positive case of novel coronavirus, or #COVID19, in New Jersey,” the tweet read. “The individual, a male in his 30s, is hospitalized in Bergen County.” Cai’s heart rate, already too fast, sped up, and he felt the chill of his own sudden
The first CT scan of Cai’s lungs from when he first arrived at the emergency room.Credit...From James Cai
The following day, an infectious-disease doctor, Bindu Balani, a calm woman with a gentle delivery, came to see him in his room, also wearing P.P.E. She explained to Cai that he did not have a pulmonary embolism, but that they could see on the scan that he did have pneumonia, and that she would start him on antibiotics. Also, it became clear to Cai that something about the CT — a shading in one lung — had given them cause to test him for coronavirus.