Her Grandmother Got the Coronavirus. Then So Did the Whole Family.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/world/asia/coronavirus-family-china.html

WUHAN, China — Bella Zhang hung an intravenous drip on a spindly tree branch and slumped down on a large stone planter outside the crowded hospital. Her mother and brother sat wearily beside her, their shoulders sagging, both also hooked up to their own drips.

In recent days, Ms. Zhang, 25, had watched helplessly as one by one, her relatives were sickened by the coronavirus that was tearing through her hometown, Wuhan. First, her grandmother got it, then it spread to her grandfather and mother. She and her younger brother were next.

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Then Ms. Zhang’s grandfather, already weak from lung cancer, suddenly took a turn for the worse. He had been using an oxygen machine to support his breathing for 30 minutes in the morning and again at night. Now he couldn’t breathe at all, and needed to be hooked up to the machine around the clock. He came down with a high fever. For four days he was so uncomfortable that he couldn’t sleep, Ms. Zhang said.

Desperate to find help, Ms. Zhang and her family called everyone they could think of. But the hospitals were all full. Emergency responders told them they needed to secure a hospital bed first before an ambulance could be sent.

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