MURRAY – It was one year ago Sunday that the St. George resident Mark Jorgensen arrived at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray and became the first Utahn with a confirmed COVID-19 case being processed in the state.
Dr. Todd Vento and Jorgensen of Intermountain appeared Sunday afternoon at a virtual meeting to discuss the anniversary and about Jorgensen’s experience with the coronavirus and what doctors have learned about COVID-19 in the months since he was treated. Vento, a doctor on the infectious diseases that treated Jorgensen, said it was ‘hard to believe’ that it had been a year since Jorgensen had arrived there.
Jorgensen was a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that became a petri dish of coronavirus infections last year. His wife, Jerri, tested positive on the ship and was taken to a Japanese hospital. Mark Jorgensen was flown from Japan by the US government and tested positive for COVID-19 for the first time after landing in California.
Days later, Jorgensen was flown to his homeland to be treated at the Intermountain Medical Center. Jorgensen was later allowed to quarantine with his wife in his own home.
He never showed symptoms of the virus.
Vento explained that at the time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention required patients to test negative for COVID-19 before they could leave isolation. Jorgensen was locked up in his home for weeks before the CDC changed leadership, and he left solitary confinement in March 2020.
“I remember the phone call,” Vento said, “called him … and then one day said, ‘Hey, you’re free to be out of isolation. “I remember him saying, ‘Wait, I’m still positive.’ I said, ‘That’s right, but now the CDC has a new approach.’
“I think the lesson is there, we are learning things,” Vento added. “We need to change, we need to adapt. People have said they should not use masks; it probably leaves us quite a bit behind. Now we know the data is incredible for masks, and we need to use masks and we need to accept them can see when you have these steep learning curves early on, sometimes people will interpret it as, ‘Oh, maybe you do not know what you are doing.’ “Well, the reality is, we really did not do it. And why is it? We had a virus that we had never heard of, had never seen before in December 2019. We had to learn very quickly.”
“I do not regret going at all”
Jorgensen said he believes he caught COVID-19 on the flight back to the United States.
“That whole thing was a nightmare,” he recalls, recalling the “battle between the CDC, the State Department and the White House” over whether he and his fellow American passengers should not even be allowed.
“That plane back was quite interesting,” he said. “Everyone was packed in this cargo plane, 747. I’m sure there was some transfer there.”
Jorgensen said it’s a bit ‘enigmatic’ to see the ‘fuss’ being made about him because he has no symptoms.
“I felt good all the time,” he said, but he understood that “people learned” about the virus and “what it was all about.”
Asymptomatic COVID-19 patients are currently advised to isolate at home for ten days.
Jorgensen said the year since he left his isolation was “fairly inconvenient.” But he’s not sure he’s skater ‘of COVID-19 as he ever thought.
“I have a memory defect going on that I hear is a symptom of it, and I wonder if it’s a part of it,” Jorgensen said. He also experienced problems with his eyes that his ophthalmologist was ‘convinced’ was related.
Jorgensen said he has not yet had a coronavirus vaccine and wants to “see how it plays out” first, but he will likely follow his doctor’s advice and eventually get one.
He said he did not regret sailing on the Diamond Princess.
“I do not live like that,” he said. “I did what I did, and that’s what happened … I’m not sorry I went. We had a great time and after that we had a little adventure, and OK, that was what it was. And yes, I’m definitely going to sail again.
“I’m actually in Costa Rica right now,” he said. “This is our first international trip since all of this. So it’s clear we are not afraid of it. It’s just our philosophy of life.”