• Hui Sian Tay and Rowan Harwood.
• Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK.
• Age Ageing. 2020 Jul 1; 49 (4): 523-524.

AbstractCommon symptoms of pandemic coronavirus disease (COVID-19) include fever and cough. We describe a 94-year-old man with well-controlled schizoaffective disorder, who presented with non-specific and atypical symptoms: delirium, low-grade pyrexia and abdominal pain. He was given antibiotics for infection of unknown source, subsequently refined to treatment for community-acquired pneumonia. Despite active treatment, he deteriorated with oxygen desaturation and tachypnoea. A repeat chest X-ray showed widespread opacification. A postmortem throat swab identified COVID-19 infection. He was treated in three wards over 5 days with no infection control precautions. This has implications for the screening, assessment and isolation of frail older people to COVID-specific clinical facilities and highlights the potential for spread among healthcare professionals and other patients.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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