Waiting for the storm to hit: Anxious U.S. doctors turn to China for answers

Although the Covid-19 outbreak has overwhelmed some hospitals in the U.S., in many cities anxious physicians feel more like coastal dwellers who learn that a tsunami has formed miles offshore: It hasn’t hit them yet, they know it’s going to, and they are desperate for information about how to survive it. Fed up with what they see as inadequate and confusing directives from public health authorities, many physicians are trying to get on-the-ground advice directly from colleagues in countries that were the first to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Doctors at Johns Hopkins, eager to hear how their counterparts in China cured 35 intensive-care patients completely and brought another 28 to only mild disease, conferred by Zoom, one doctor told STAT’s Sharon Begley.