The 62-year-old patient, from Chicago, was admitted to the hospital in April where doctors also noted that he had unexplained weight loss.
According to a case report, published in the American Journal of Emergency medicine, the man had diabetes but wasn’t suffering from a fever, or a sore throat.
But he had been experiencing persistent hiccups for four days, and when tested for coronavirus his results came back positive.
Hiccups are an involuntary condition and can be triggered by certain foods we eat, strong emotions such as excitement, or stress.
Currently, NHS England has advised that the key coronavirus symptoms are a new and persistent cough, a high temperature or a loss of taste or smell.
In the Chicago case, on the man’s arrival to the emergency department he had a temperature of 37.3C and his heart rate was 96 beats per minute.
Doctors then carried out a scan on the lungs and found groundglass opacities which indicates a person may be struggling with their lung capacity.
Further scans found that this was scattered through the lungs.
The patient was then admitted to an isolation room where he received treatment for possible pneumonia.
A respiratory viral panel and Covid-19 swab were sent for testing.
He was then admitted to the Covid medical unit as a person under investigation.
On arrival to the Covid unit his temperature was taken again and sat at 38.4C, the patient’s heart rate had also gone up to 104 beats per minute.
Doctors placed him on airborne isolation and also trialled him on anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.
The patient then tested positive for the virus.❐
