Keywords:  corona virus, coronavirus, covid, covid-19
The patient in the present scenario presents with low grade fever, cough, shortness of breath, as well as back ache. It is also important to note that the patient suffers from gastroesophageal reflux disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. The patient is a 54-year-old male. Some of the symptoms that the patient presents are consistent with COVID-19 symptoms. The main COVID-19 symptoms are inclusive of difficulty breathing/shortness of breath, cough, and fever (Adhikari, 2020). Yet another key consideration in making a decision to test is the patient’s travel history. The patient in the present scenario has recently traveled out of the U.S. He could, thus, be categories as a person under investigation (PUI), i.e. on the basis of the respiratory illness symptoms presented and based on the fact that he had traveled to a country having local transmission. Testing in this case would be consistent with CDC guidance for COVID-19 with reference to the Recommendations for Reporting, Testing, and Specimen Collection. Towards this end, it is important to note that “for initial diagnostic testing for COVID-19, CDC recommends collecting and testing upper respiratory tract specimens (nasopharyngeal swab)” (CDC, 2020). If the lab results come back positive for the novel virus, the treatment plan would be focused on the alleviation of the symptoms being experienced by the patient. This is more so the case given that at present, COVID-19 has no recommended antiviral medication.

There are specific barriers to diagnostic treatment and care in the present scenario owing to the patient’s other comorbidities, i.e. hypertension and diabetes mellitus. It should be noted that although the novel virus affects persons irrespective of their age, the World Health Organization – WHO (2020) points out that “people with pre-existing medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease) appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus”. It therefore follows that the 54-year-old is at increased risk of developing severe illness as a consequence of the virus. Treatment would in this...…factor to severe illness following the acquisition of the novel virus. Indeed, research has indicated that fewer infections as well as fatalities in children (Wei, Yuan, and Liu, 2020). To a large extent, a person’s immune system weakens with advancement in age – effectively meaning that infections could wreak havoc to general health and wellbeing. Thus, it would be prudent to ensure that the 68-year old is tested by having her nasal sample taken and dispatched to the lab for testing. If positive results for COVID-19 were to be returned, treatment would commence and would be focused on the alleviation of symptoms. The patient may need to be treated in the hospital due to the risk of developing more severe symptoms. The two differential diagnosis for the scenario resented would be respiratory syncytial virus and influenza. Some of the shared symptoms of the two diseases in this case are: cough, fever, runny/stuffy nose, sore throat and shortness of breath. The 68-year old female presents with some of the…