Waikiki bartender awake in hospital, tests negative for COVID-19 after 6-week battle
COURTESY PEGGY TORDA-SABALLA
Lee-Jacob “Coby” Torda, 37, is recovering from a coronavirus infection at Kaiser Permanente’s Moanalua Medical Center.
A Waikiki bartender who had been unconscious in the hospital for weeks because of a coronavirus infection is now awake and has tested negative for the disease, according to Honolulu City Councilwoman Kym Pine.
Coby Torda, of Ewa Beach, initially experienced symptoms on March 9 and was hospitalized March 21. He was placed on a ventilator, and doctors put him in a medically induced coma for treatment.
Torda later developed secondary pneumonia from his breathing tube.
On April 23, he tested negative for COVID-19 for the second time, and the next day, he was moved to a ventilator via a tracheostomy and had external breathing tube removed.
He has been recovering at Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Center where he has been able to breathe without the ventilator for as long as 11 hours, his family said.
Torda’s mother, Peggy Torda-Saballa, also contracted the virus, but she recovered at home.
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“It feels like a ton of bricks being lifted off my chest,” she said in a statement released by Pine’s office.
