London woman dies of suspected Covid-19 after being told she was 'not priority'

[muriel_volestrangler]

A 36-year-old woman died at her flat in south London of suspected Covid-19 a day after calling 999 and being told to look after herself at home.

Kayla Williams, a mother of three, died on Saturday 21 March, a day after paramedics were called to her home in Peckham.
...
Williams said: “I called 999 because my wife was breathless, she was vomiting and she had pains in her stomach. As I was talking to them she was getting worse and they told me to put her on the floor and to make her body flat.”

When the paramedic arrived at 8.32am she carried out some tests, Williams said. “She told me the hospital won’t take her, she is not a priority. She did not stay very long and she went outside to write her report and posted it through the door.”

Williams said his wife’s condition deteriorated the next day. He ran her a bath in the morning and helped her to get dressed, before feeding her some soup. After taking a short rest himself, he went into the front room where she had been resting to find his wife slumped head down. “She was already dead,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/london-woman-36-dies-of-suspected-covid-19-after-being-told-she-is-not-priority

This is bad. Either the paramedic really screwed up, or the London hospitals are already overloaded and they're not telling us.

[Mike 03]

1. "she was vomiting and she had pains in her stomach"

Seeing more reports that include GI distress and vomiting.

This is a tragic, tragic story. What's interesting is that more of the later cases that have come out talk about vomiting, but the early studies and papers barely mentioned GI symptoms. They focused mostly on fever, dry cough and fatigue. Then this morning Ohio released a statement saying GI symptoms should be considered, that many of their patients were presenting with symptoms like vomiting.

The word needs to get out that patients with this symptom can't be excluded based on those early studies from China that claimed very, very few COVID-19 patients presented with GI distress.

[T_i_B]

2. Hospitals are overloaded

Dealing with that is a major part of the government response to Coronavirus.

[defacto7]

3. Fever is no longer considered a reliable early warning.

Only 44% of positive C-19 patients present fever when other symptoms present themselves. Guidelines don't seem to be keeping up with the changing medical findings.