The odds are that at this point, I've had direct contact with dozens of people who have it and don't know it. Not that there's anything unusual about me. In fact, I haven't even travelled in the past couple of weeks.
Here's a first hand account of a woman who tried to get tested and couldn't:
I want to share with everyone my story of potentially having COVID-19 and how our health care system is completely broken in dealing with this. If you think people are getting tested and being isolated from the rest of the public, think again. Think there are no cases in your community? Think again. If my story is any indication, this thing is way out of control already -- we just aren’t testing people so we don’t know about it.
I will start with my travel history. On Sunday, February 23, I began a trip to Thailand for a meeting for work. I didn’t read the news that morning because I was busy getting packed and out of the door. My first flight left from Dulles and landed in Seoul 14 hours later (it’s now Monday, 2/24). There was no wi-fi on the flight and so it wasn’t until I landed that I knew that South Korea was experiencing an outbreak. I bought a mask in the airport, got some food and coffee, and then boarded my plane to Bangkok. I spent five days in a meeting in Bangkok washing hands religiously. On Saturday 2/29 I began my trip back. My trip had been rerouted back through London so that I would avoid South Korea. I spent the night in London near the airport and returned to Dulles on Sunday March 1st.
You may remember that on Saturday there was a big announcement from Trump saying that they would be taking increased measures to ensure people coming from South Korea would be evaluated and tested when necessary. So, I was a little worried I would have trouble getting back into the country. Every other country I had flown through they made announcements on the plane as we were landing. In Thailand there were public health officials randomly testing people coming off of my flight and in all other countries there were clear signs of what to do if you don’t feel well directing you to people to talk to. In London, public health people even boarded the plane before we could disembark. When I got to Dulles, there was nothing. I didn’t see a single sign, there were no announcements, and while I was looking, I didn’t see anyone checking anyone’s health or a place where people could ask someone a question.
I was looking because toward the end of that last flight, the lymph nodes in my neck started to swell and that is usually a sign I’m about to be sick. I called my ex-husband to ask him to keep the kids for an extra day to be on the safe side and made a quick stop by the grocery store to get some food for the week.
On Monday I was achy, had a headache, had chills and generally felt horrible. But, no fever or chest congestion and so I wasn’t too worried just thinking I had picked up a cold travelling. On Tuesday when I woke up, I got more concerned because there was now congestion in my chest, and I was coughing and having shortness of breath. I called my asthma doctor who told me to go to the ER because they didn’t have the capacity to deal with it and they thought I should be tested. I understood they were asking people to not just show up anywhere but to call first to let them know you are coming. I called GW hospital and they said not to come because they don’t have the tests. They told me that I should call the DC Department of Health.
I called the Department of Health. The man on the phone took a detailed history of my symptoms and my travel history and said that the shortness of breath could be from my asthma, I don’t have a fever, and because I’m low risk I don’t qualify to be tested. I was surprised to be called low-risk with my travel history. I know there are people at greater risk, and so I let it go. I asked if I should continue to self-quarantine and he said that limiting my interactions would be good and if I needed to go out wear a mask and wash hands a lot. I asked for how long and he said for 14 days since I was in South Korea. He also said to call back if my symptoms worsened or changed in any way. He said they would keep monitoring my case.
Over the course of the week, my symptoms would get better and then worse. I didn’t feel like I was on death’s door and felt much like I have felt when I’ve had the flu but with no head congestion. On Wednesday night I was up with stomach cramps and diarrhea, and I also found out that one of my work colleagues was not feeling well. She is in rural Indonesia where testing isn’t possible and so there is no way to know if she has it. So, on Thursday morning I called back to Department of Health and the woman I talked to was clearly not familiar with my case and seemed to have no way to find my earlier call. I went through everything again, and told her of the new symptoms and my colleague being sick. She said that I haven’t been in contact with anyone who has it (she doesn’t care that my colleague is sick because she hasn’t been tested), and that I’m low risk. She said that if I feel I need to be tested, the way to do that is to go to my doctor and my doctor can recommend I be tested. I asked her whether I should extend my self-quarantine since I am now displaying symptoms, and she said no. That I don’t need to self-quarantine, and that I should treat it just like if I had a cold or the flu. I can go out in public just try not to cough on anyone and wash my hands a lot. I was stunned.
I called my doctor again who told me to go to urgent care or the emergency room, but they didn’t have capacity to deal with it. I really wanted to avoid the emergency room and didn’t think they would test me if I went so I didn’t go. I also thought going into a room full of sick people just wasn’t that great of an idea or either of us. On Friday, a friend contacted the director of the Department of Health who told me to go to an urgent care facility (even listing a few). So, instead of showing up I called a few, and they told me that they were not equipped to handle this and that I should go to the ER. I was then told by my friend that the director said they are doing testing at GW hospital’s emergency room and I should go there. That if a doctor thought I should be tested, they would test me there.
So, on Friday at 2:15, I arrived at the ER at GW. I told them I had been in South Korea. There clearly was someone else there in the same situation. They had me take a seat and then called me over to the triage nurse. She took my history and symptoms and told me they needed to put me in isolation. I was already wearing a mask but she also put gloves on my hands. They didn’t have a room right away and so put me in an area of the waiting room that was away from others and told the security guard not to let anyone else sit there. I was beginning to feel like I was in the right place where people were taking it seriously. Soon they called me back to a room. I saw a doctor and they said they were going to do a viral screen to rule out everything. It’s an ER, it took a long time, but I was in isolation thinking someone was taking me seriously and I was feeling good about that. After a few hours the doctor poked her head in to say I had tested positive for Flu B and they would be discharging me soon and get rest and liquids. About a half hour later, she came back in to apologize that she had mixed up my room with the room next door (I believe there were 3 other people there also being assessed for Covid-19 at the time), and that my flu test was actually negative as were the other things they test for and so now they would do a test for Covid-19. Time passed and I didn’t hear anything. After several hours the doctor came back in and told me that she was very sorry but the department of health was refusing to run the test. They said I wasn’t in South Korea long enough. She was furious. She said she was still trying to get them to change their mind. She got the chief of staff involved. She kept trying. Nothing. The doctor told me she thought there was a high likelihood that I have it based on my travel history, symptoms, the colleague that is sick, and all other tests coming back negative. But, without the test she couldn’t tell me for sure, and her hands were tied. She asked me to please keep self-quarantining and to come back if my symptoms worsened so that they could at least treat the symptoms. At 11:45, I was discharged and went home.
Do I have Covid-19? Who knows. Do we have a broken public healthcare system that is utterly failing during a health pandemic? Absolutely.
