Doctor Who Treated First COVID-19 Patient In Illinois Gets Vaccine, Reflects On Lessons Learned
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Infectious disease specialist Dr. Lynwood Jones helped treat the first coronavirus patient in Illinois. Friday he got the vaccine.
Jones talked with CBS 2's Marissa Parra about what it was like treating that first patient and the lessons he learned.
For the first time in months, Jones said he feels a sense of hope.
"It's a far cry from what we see every day," he said, hours after being given a COVID-19 vaccine.
It's a true full circle moment. The first time Jones spoke with Parra was over the phone nearly a year ago. All cameras and eyes were on St. Alexius Hospital in Hoffman Estates. Jones was a busy man.
People around the country wanted to know about Illinois's patient zero, a woman known as the country's second confirmed COVID-19 case.
Jones said then and again Friday that they hoped that would be the end of it.
"In February things calmed down, and we said, 'Oh, it's not so bad.' And then all of a sudden into March things went boom," Jones said.
They were pioneers in terms of witnessing COVID-19 in person in the United States but never expected life to look the way it does now, less than a year later.
"We didn't think it would balloon like this," Jones said. "Looking back I say, 'Gosh, we didn't know a darn thing back then.'"
He and his staff were desperate for more information. Information was not coming fast enough. Back then each test had to be sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia.
It was a dark time. Anxiety was swirling and the hospital was swarmed.
"Illinois state was here. Cook County was here. The CDC team was here," Jones said. "It was almost a circus with that because we had all those people coming in."
But all that has changed.
"I haven't talked to the CDC folks in probably six months," he said.
A new COVID case is no longer breaking news. Now death totals in Illinois are in the triple digits on some days, making for a bittersweet moment this cold December day.
The same hospital staff who rolled up their sleeves to care for one of the country's first COVID patients rolled up their sleeves for another milestone and are hoping others do the same.
"Take the vaccine. It's our only protection right now," Jones said.
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