Charlebois, who is now 78, was suffering from the most severe complication in patients with COVID-19: acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The syndrome, which can also be related to sepsis, severe pneumonia and other illnesses, is an immune reaction to infection or trauma, which causes hyper inflammation, filling the lung’s air sacs with fluid. Treatments are limited and it is frequently fatal. In the early days of the pandemic, the mortality rate in COVID-19 patients with ARDS was more than 50 per cent.
