I'm just going to put this here. "It was hard to breathe," Reed says. "Even walking to the bathroom, I felt like I was running out of air. My ears hurt from it, I lost my balance at times. It started to get scary, like the worst flu I've ever had." Reed ended up in hospital and, after a full day of testing, he says doctors told him he had a "new kind of pneumonia". Fortunately, he was fit and healthy: his life didn't appear to be in danger. Steroid inhalers helped reduce inflammation in his lungs and, more than a month after that first sniffle, Reed recovered. When he called the hospital in early January to ask more about his test results, they told him what was about to hit headlines around the world in just a matter of days – a new kind of coronavirus had been identified in humans. Reed was one of the earliest suspected cases. That description is what led me to inquire with my insurance about getting this thing tested despite the fact that I haven't had a fever in weeks. My experience has been milder, but the time frame matches. For the record: I probably had a fever Feb24-25. As my wife had had a "cold" three days previously, I didn't check. I did check on March 1 and did not have a fever and have not had a fever since. I started to experience malaise, weakness and exhaustion Feb 24 which persisted through March 15 (today). I have had a persistent cough since March 2 or March 3, and I have had an ear infection that has responded slowly to augmentin since March 8. I have never before had an ear infection that didn't clear up within two days of augmentin. I have had a sore throat off and on since about March 1, minimal nasal symptoms, and occasional back ache and other pains since March 2 or 3. I was on a flight from Seattle to Anchorage on February 16, was constrained to a single location from February 16 to February 23, visited a museum in Anchorage on February 23, then traveled from Anchorage to Seattle on February 23. I visited one restaurant on February 24, one yoga class on February 25 and one restaurant on March 5 but have otherwise been self-quarantined. I went shopping at three stores yesterday. My wife's clinic gained access to Quest's COVID-19 test on Wednesday, March 11. On Friday March 13 I called my insurance company to see if they would cover it. They will not. Its projected cost is $1500 minimum. They suggested I call my primary care provider. My primary care provider advised me that they will not cover COVID-19 testing unless I have fever, chills and a cough and can document exposure to a known COVID-19 positive-testing patient, but they would pass a message to my doctor. I have not heard back yet. EDIT: My wife reminded me that our daughter was feeling shitty enough that we almost didn't send her to school on Thursday, February 13 but not so shitty that she didn't come home a bubbling bundle of energy. So. At first, Reed seemed to just have a cold. A week on, then early December, he was already feeling better when a fever hit, and a cough. His whole body started to ache. Another week went by. He thought he was on the mend until the cough became deeper, seeming to settle at the bottom of his lungs.
A Snohomish County man, 35, the nation’s first coronavirus case, was admitted to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett on Jan. 20. He became ill five days after returning from a trip to Wuhan, China, and was treated in a special isolation unit devised for the Ebola outbreak five years ago. After two weeks at Providence, he was monitored at home and fully recovered.
I’m more and more sure that this thing came through my social circle and work circle in early to mid January, though in a milder form. Multiple bouts of sickness with a brief “healthy” period, a cough that couldn’t be shaken and went deeper into my lungs on the second round (to the point where there was a rattling sensation in my chest). Hmmmm. And now we get to see what happens when we rely on private lab testing on a large scale.
I would wonder if it went through all my in-laws and my work starting in mid February except that nobody except that I don't think a single one out of a few dozen have had symptoms worse than 'cold with a lingering cough'. And that includes some heavy smokers who don't exercise pushing 70.
Yeah I felt pretty shitty when my mother-in-law went down about the same time. She's still got laryngitis. Except I didn't so much as go into the house and she's got like eight students (all in their 60s-70s-80s) who have been dealing with said-same. This is the part where the CDC goes "well duh that's why we've stopped community testing. When we say 'endemic to the region' this is what we're talking about."
Hopefully fewer than if I'd gone "it's just a cold, I do what I want" but let's run with it. Best guess is COVID-19 has a median incubation period of 5 days. So. My wife started feeling sniffly Wednesday evening to Thursday morning; we were on a fully-packed 737-900 with 225 people, two pilots and four crew. Did everyone get sick? No, because I didn't get sick until five days after my wife got sick (and my daughter has yet to get sick) so all three of us were likely shedding viruses on three sets of rental gear, shedding viruses in two restaurants a day, shedding viruses at a museum, shedding viruses at an airport, shedding viruses on a fully-packed 737-900 with 225 people, two pilots and four crew (again). Nobody at my wife's work has felt sick yet, despite the likelihood that I caught it from her, despite the fact that viral shedding persists from 8 to 37 days past contraction according to what data we can find. If nothing else that means that our procedures at the birth center are working but it also means that we've had hundreds of patients and relatives exposed in the three weeks we've been back. Let's say I pay for that test. I'm out $1500 and if it comes back negative, I know I don't have coronavirus right now. Let's say it comes back positive. Five families are out of work and an entire clinic caseload of screened low-risk patients gets launched onto the public health system. This is probably about where I mention we've got four acute-care patients coming in tomorrow with symptoms of coronavirus, who were not tested for coronavirus at the emergency room but were instead told to follow up with their primary care provider. In other words, "we don't have the wherewithal to deal with you, go infect your family doctor on Monday." What we've been dealing with is "what can we fob off on telemedicine" and "what do we have to do in person" and suppose I've dropped $1500 to shut my business down. From a public health standpoint do we tell our staff and all our patients to self-isolate and seek testing? Can they get testing considering my test is a self-report? I mean, we've had zero infectious disease communication; I suppose we report to the Department of Health but at this point they've demonstrated they'd rather we keep our patients out of their system. And really, if the test is telling me what I already know, is my moral duty to shut everything down and fob it off on a system that has far more crucial patients than a bunch of pregnant women in their late '20s or is my moral duty to go "you know what we're all going to have CV sooner or later so let's soldier on?" Perhaps most importantly, now that enough time has passed that my wife is no longer symptomatic and I'm on the mend, If I've traced my exposure back to "an airline flight a full calendar month ago" how deep in the shit are we already? Alaska has one (1) confirmed case of COVID-19. How much testing do you think they're doing?