Baptist Health Paducah Dispels COVID-19 Rumor

A local hospital has been forced to issue a statement to reassure everyone that they have no patients with novel coronavirus.

In a Facebook post on Thursday afternoon, Baptist Health Paducah said there are no cases of COVID-19 at the hospital at this time. 

A person at Baptist Health Paducah told West Kentucky Star the post was made to educate the public after a woman posted information on social media about her child's recent visit to the Emergency Room. She said doctors diagnosed the baby with a coronavirus, but it was the strand that is referred to as the common cold. 

The Baptist Health official said after the woman's post was seen on Facebook, people began calling doctor's offices to cancel their appointments. 

The hospital's post stressed that most people have had at least one of the four common coronaviruses, which cause cold-like symptoms and possible respiratory illnesses. The statement reiterated that the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a different strain which had not previously been identified until late last year. 

In Kentucky, eight people have been diagnosed with the virus, all of them in north central part of the Commonwealth.


Here is the complete post by Baptist Health Paducah:

IMPORTANT: There are NO cases of COVID-19 at Baptist Health Paducah at this time. 

There are four common Coronaviruses that Baptist Health routinely tests for that are associated with mild to moderate upper-respiratory illnesses like the common cold. Most people get infected with these viruses at some point in their lives. These illnesses usually last for only a short amount of time. Human coronaviruses can sometimes cause lower-respiratory tract illnesses, such as pneumonia or bronchitis.

According to the CDC, a novel coronavirus is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified. The virus causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is not the same as the coronaviruses that commonly circulate among humans and cause mild illness, like the common cold.