By TATIANA PROPHET

Doctors at Providence Hospital in Seattle observed that the very first known U.S. patient to have Covid-19 was suffering from a lack of oxygen. That was back in January 2020.

The unnamed patient, who reported to urgent care after four days of fever and a dry cough, was tested due to having just returned from Wuhan, China. After testing positive for 2019-nCoV, he was hospitalized on January 21 in an isolation room.

At first, his blood-oxygen saturation levels were within the normal 96%-98% range, and he did not have shortness of breath, but did have a cough and two days of nausea and vomiting, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. A chest x-ray on day 3 showed no abnormalities.

Patient zero was never put on a ventilator; instead, his doctors noted growing evidence of pneumonia couple with low blood-oxygen saturation rates. He received supplemental oxygen, two kinds of antibiotics for a possible hospital-derived infection — and experimental drug Remdesivir for compassionate use.