Source: NY Daily News
He is not your typical critically ill coronavirus patient, but 25-year-old Jack Allard is fighting for his life nonetheless, according to his mother.
The young man, who works in Manhattan and lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey, is in a medically-induced coma and on a ventilator, and was recently moved from Hackensack Meridian Health JFK Medical Center in Edison to a hospital in Pennsylvania where he is expected to receive a new experimental treatment for COVID-19.
The severe symptoms started on March 13, according to his mother Genny Allard. Two days after the symptoms began, he checked himself into the hospital. He was tested for the coronavirus, but his family claims the results got lost for several days, which delayed treatment.
What surprised his family, was that his symptoms were not the usual kind associated with COVID-19. “He had (an) incredibly high fever, back pain, and he was throwing up,” according to his mother Genny Allard said. “He didn’t have a cough, which is normally associated with the respiratory virus. Plus, he is an active, healthy, young person and a former two-time All-America lacrosse player at Bates College in Maine.
“He’s not overweight, he exercises weekly,” she said during an appearance on Fox News. She has also noted he didn’t smoke or vape and took his health “very seriously…Jack has nothing. He’s not asthmatic, he’s completely healthy.”
Coronavirus has proven especially dangerous to older people, especially those with preexisting respiratory conditions. However, experts fear the coronavirus may be proving to be more problematic for younger people than originally believed.
Allard is on a waiting list to take part in a clinical trial for Remdesivir, a novel antiviral drug that attacks the coronavirus.
The drug “has the ability to shut down and kind of slow down the virus so Jack’s body can properly fight it,” his mother said on Fox News. “His doctors say this is something that can really help him and we are really excited that he might be a candidate for this. We think it is the best chance he has to survive.”
New Jersey reported Wednesday it has more than 4,400 positive cases of the coronavirus, officials said, with more than 60 deaths.