BOARDMAN, Ohio - 21 News spoke with a doctor on the front lines of the coronavirus. He shared with us how his day-to-day operations have changed and the symptoms he looks for in potential cases.
 
"I don't walk into a room anymore with anybody with respiratory complaints without being fully gowned, gloved, masked and with a face shield on if I think there is any possibility they have it," said Dr. Nicholas Proia.
 
Proia is an independent Pulmonologist, who practices out of Mercy Hospital in Boardman. He said, so far, he has seen one case of the coronavirus and is on watch for others.
 
"The symptoms at the beginning are so non-specific that it's tough to assuredly say you have it, and you don't," said Proia. "There's really a wide spectrum, and frankly, the index of suspicion has to be high in the part of the clinician. So it's not everybody, just because coronavirus is an outbreak doesn't mean you can't have another illness and that's becoming increasingly difficult. We're all kind of paranoid; we're all kind of looking for that coronavirus patient."
 
The more obvious symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath, but there are other signs.
 
"We look for simple symptoms like has your sense of smell or taste diminished, that's a little bit of a hint, and we also look for lack of a high white blood cell count and a couple of lab values that kind of throw us away from bacterial infections but not necessarily toward a viral infection so its kind of a compendium of things," said Proia.
 
Since tests for coronavirus are limited and results take time, Dr. Proia said if they suspect a patient is positive for the virus, they'll take action immediately.
 
"We quarantine them, we also give them the medicine that we hope there no controlled trials obviously - that we hope are going to work - something like chloroquine or something like hydroxychloroquine," said Proia. "Medicine other people have tried using and hopefully have some effect."
 
Proia says it's a proactive step.
 
"We isolate this patient proactively, we treat them proactively, in the hope that they don't have it, but at least if they do, we're ahead of the game just because of the clinical suspicion," said Proia.
 
In the meantime, we asked him when he thinks this virus will peak locally and how long it will last?
 
"I think if people take reasonable precautions and try and do the social distancing thing and stay at home, it should burn out pretty quickly. I'm hoping by the beginning of may we'll see at least the beginning of the end," said Proia.