The Dangers of COVID Misdiagnosis

[jedishrfu]

Summary:: Article on doctors trying to diagnose patients who don’t have COVID but does have COVID indications.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/covid-19-misdiagnosis

 

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Take a doctor who has spent weeks on the Covid-19 wards, in a city where cases are spiking. They see a patient with similar symptoms to Covid-19, and chances are it’ll be the first diagnosis that jumps to mind.

Rightfully, in a city where it's by far the most likely cause.
I don't see what's special about COVID-19 here. Of course you are thinking of more common diseases first. Arizona had 850,000 COVID-19 cases in the last 1.5 years. It has about 3 cases of hantavirus disease per year.

The article discusses deaths from diseases that were not diagnosed, or diagnosed too late, but what about the opposite? How many additional people would have died from COVID-19 if doctors would have started testing everyone for tons of obscure diseases first? And who produces the testing capabilities to test hundreds of thousands of Arizonans(?) for e.g. hantavirus?