FEATURED ARTICLE
To date, there is no known cure for Covid-19. It is impossible to know what elements of Cai’s treatment — the high-flow oxygen, the medications, the passage of time, the sense of wraparound community support, the powerful injection of last-minute hope — helped pull him through. On March 21, Cai learned that he had now tested negative twice in a row for the virus. His lungs would need time to recover, but he was alive — and the virus was dead.
The next day, at home, Cai would tweet out his gratitude to the staff of the hospital, thanking many of them by name, including Balani and Arad, “for saving my life.”
Before he left the hospital, he put on a soft gray hoodie, sweatpants and clean socks, all of which his mother had left for him. He put on a mask. As he walked out of the room that had been like a prison, he looked back at the bedside tray where he took his meals, where he had placed that letter to his daughter in an envelope. He left it behind. Someone would throw it away and clean the room, and another patient would take his place.
"As he walked out of the room that had been like a prison, he looked back at the bedside tray where he took his meals, where he had placed that letter to his daughter in an envelope. He
left it behind."
"During that time, the number of known cases of Covid-19 in New Jersey had ballooned from one to 1,914. Twenty people in New Jersey
had died."
He left the hospital that day, nearly three weeks after he arrived. During that time, the number of known cases of Covid-19 in New Jersey had ballooned from one to 1,914. Twenty people in New Jersey had died. And in the weeks to come, the number infected would rise to more than 29,000, and members of the medical staff, now treating hundreds of sick patients, would fall ill themselves. “I intubated my colleague today,” tweeted David Zodda, a Hackensack emergency-room doctor, on March 27: “a young, healthy E.R. doc like me.”