A number of doctors from Corona's wards told the Vox news site about the suffering of dying people from the virus.
Doctor and Corona patient in US hospital // Photo: AFP
What was not said about the corona virus?
That the mortality rate from it is tiny, that it is "like the flu" and that most who die from it at all die from other diseases.
But in the United States, where the death toll exceeded half a million a few days ago, a number of doctors and experts have decided to break the silence and tell the Vox news site what people who die from the disease look and sound like.
"Most of what I see is going on behind the curtains and this is the public, and the families of the victims, too, are not exposed at all," says specialist pulmonologist Todd Rice, of Vanderbilt University Hospital.
"The public is protected from these sections of the disease, they do not see or hear them," the doctor admits.
Jess Mendel, head of the Department of Lung and Respiratory Medicine at the University Hospital of San Diego, is trying to explain what the hard and dying patients are going through.
"Try to imagine you have to breathe through a particularly narrow drink straw. Sure, you can do it for 15 or twenty seconds without difficulty, but try to do it for two hours."
Kenneth Remy, a specialist doctor at the Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, allows himself to be more picturesque.
"Patients say they feel like there's a leash on their chest, or their lungs are burning. Others say they feel thousands of bees inside their lungs. That the pain is like bee stings."
"Others deal with serious health secretions and claim they feel like they's drowning in mud. They tell me they feel crushed or suffocated. You hear them say 'I want to die because it's so excruciating.' That's what this virus does, I do not wish for that. This is for the worst of my enemies, "says the doctor.
Remy continues: "These are not just your lungs. The disease causes insane headaches, which cause patients to gasp very quickly and raise foam. This causes destruction of the patient's coping ability and mental state."
But not only the disease is the enemy, also the loneliness that is forced on the isolated patients in the corona wards.
Dr. Mylin T., a respiratory specialist at the University of Nebraska, sadly describes the lonely effects on patients: “So many patients try to talk, tell me how lonely they are, desperate for touch or just a conversation.
It's so scary to be in such a serious state of illness, / killing so many, when there is no familiar face to comfort you. "