SALT LAKE CITY — One year ago Sunday, Utah received its first patient with COVID-19.

Mark Jorgensen and his wife contracted the virus while on a cruise ship in Asia, along with dozens of others — before the now-rampant disease made it to the states.

“I had no idea we’d still be doing this a year later,” Jorgensen said on Sunday, adding that he initially expected the novel SARS-CoV-2 strain would act “more like another swine flu or bird flu.”

“I’m very surprised it has lasted as long as it has,” he said.

Jorgensen, who never experienced symptoms, was admitted at Intermountain Medical Center’s special high-level isolation unit on Feb. 28, 2020, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested the transfer from

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