Desperate for Covid-19 answers, U.S. doctors turn to colleagues in China

Even as the Covid-19 outbreak has already overwhelmed some U.S. hospitals, in many cities anxious physicians feel more like coastal dwellers who learn that a tsunami has formed miles offshore: It hasn’t hit them yet, they know it’s going to, and they are desperate for information about how to survive it.

Now, fed up with what they see as inadequate and confusing directives from public health authorities, many physicians are trying to get on-the-ground advice directly from colleagues in countries that were the first to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Hospitals in Baltimore, including those affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, are coping, so far. Maryland’s case count rose from 190 on Saturday to 244 on Sunday to 288 by Monday night, however, mirroring where New York and other states were two