In 2009, Amy Bacon, a seemingly healthy resident of Grand Blanc, Michigan, suffered sudden cardiac arrest. By the time medics got to her, she’d been without oxygen for four minutes. The odds of survival were around six percent. Three years later, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and received a heart transplant. Then, on April 16, 2020, Bacon tested positive for COVID-19.

At the time, there was little data on how someone with her conditions would fare. So she consulted with her transplant team, who told her not to go to the hospital and risk picking up an infection. After her heart failure and transplant, the 51-year-old had a startling thought: “COVID was going to be the one