Item
An Unseen First Wave
Title (Dublin Core)
An Unseen First Wave
Description (Dublin Core)
As more evidence seems to mount that there were deaths in the United States from COVID-19 long before the first "official" death in the country was announced, I become more and more convinced that I already had it.
Date (Dublin Core)
Creator (Dublin Core)
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Type (Dublin Core)
Text
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
Collection (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
04/24/2020
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
11/08/2020
10/15/2021
Date Created (Dublin Core)
04/24/2020
Text (Omeka Classic)
As more evidence seems to mount that there were deaths in the United States from COVID-19 long before the first "official" death in the country was announced, I become more and more convinced that I already had it.
I'm certainly not the only one who thinks so. In February, shortly after returning to college for the spring semester - along with thousands of other students who had been overseas - I got incredibly sick. The only thing I can compare this illness to was when I once had whooping cough, but even then, this flu I had in Feb 2020 was worse.
I was delirious with fever, sweating through bed sheets. The cough became so bad that I couldn't sit down; any time I sat down, I would start coughing, and it would only stop if I stood up. I used up the medicines I had in my apartment and had to go to the store for more. Tears streaming down my face, I went through the checkout with $60 worth of different types of suppressants and expectorants. When the cashier asked me a question, I was coughing so hard I couldn't respond. I took my bag and went home.
I purposefully overdosed medicines that contained dmx (no pain killers) because a normal dose wasn't helping, and I was miserable. I couldn't sleep. When I lay down, my lungs whistled with each breath. I spent most of one night contemplating going to the emergency room, but I'm still thousands in debt from a hospital visit six years ago, so I took my chances on my own. The next night, I was so exhausted and fed up, I dumped a few pots of boiling water into my plugged bathroom sink, sat a chair in front of it, hung my head over the sink and put a blanket over it. That "sauna" allowed me some respite from the coughing and pain, for a little while.
I was sick for over a week, with the worst of it spread over about four days (Feb 12-15). This was before social distancing and stay at home orders, and my college courses were unforgiving when it came to attendance, so I was still coming into contact with the same groups of people regularly. While I'm very germ-conscious, I don't think that entirely explains why none of the people who I came in contact with seemed to exhibit similar symptoms, even my roommate. Seasonal colds and flus tend to make the rounds, but among my peer group, I was the only one who got so sick.
That being said, there are half a dozen people who I personally know across the southern shore of Lake Ontario who came down with similarly terrible respiratory illnesses in the last week of January or the first two weeks of February. None of us went to the doctor; why go when it's cold and flu season? Why go if it's just a viral illness, and we'll be sent home with nothing but another bill? But now we're left questioning.
I understand that many are saying that this year's was just a "particularly bad" seasonal flu, but I've had seasonal flus before, and they weren't like this. I've never had a seasonal flu that was so long-lasting or so horrible. It also wouldn't explain why no one around me seemed to get sick.
Personally, I think the government fucked up. We already know there's massive populations of people who have the virus and haven't been tested. There were reports of travelers being tested in other countries, who would have had to have contracted the virus in some "unaffected" area of the U.S. By restricting testing early on only to people already connected with known cases or international travel, the government missed the actual first wave of COVID-19 as it spread, unseen. They're still missing it. It's April 24th and we still aren't implementing wide-spread testing, let alone testing of asymptomatic people.
I'm certainly not the only one who thinks so. In February, shortly after returning to college for the spring semester - along with thousands of other students who had been overseas - I got incredibly sick. The only thing I can compare this illness to was when I once had whooping cough, but even then, this flu I had in Feb 2020 was worse.
I was delirious with fever, sweating through bed sheets. The cough became so bad that I couldn't sit down; any time I sat down, I would start coughing, and it would only stop if I stood up. I used up the medicines I had in my apartment and had to go to the store for more. Tears streaming down my face, I went through the checkout with $60 worth of different types of suppressants and expectorants. When the cashier asked me a question, I was coughing so hard I couldn't respond. I took my bag and went home.
I purposefully overdosed medicines that contained dmx (no pain killers) because a normal dose wasn't helping, and I was miserable. I couldn't sleep. When I lay down, my lungs whistled with each breath. I spent most of one night contemplating going to the emergency room, but I'm still thousands in debt from a hospital visit six years ago, so I took my chances on my own. The next night, I was so exhausted and fed up, I dumped a few pots of boiling water into my plugged bathroom sink, sat a chair in front of it, hung my head over the sink and put a blanket over it. That "sauna" allowed me some respite from the coughing and pain, for a little while.
I was sick for over a week, with the worst of it spread over about four days (Feb 12-15). This was before social distancing and stay at home orders, and my college courses were unforgiving when it came to attendance, so I was still coming into contact with the same groups of people regularly. While I'm very germ-conscious, I don't think that entirely explains why none of the people who I came in contact with seemed to exhibit similar symptoms, even my roommate. Seasonal colds and flus tend to make the rounds, but among my peer group, I was the only one who got so sick.
That being said, there are half a dozen people who I personally know across the southern shore of Lake Ontario who came down with similarly terrible respiratory illnesses in the last week of January or the first two weeks of February. None of us went to the doctor; why go when it's cold and flu season? Why go if it's just a viral illness, and we'll be sent home with nothing but another bill? But now we're left questioning.
I understand that many are saying that this year's was just a "particularly bad" seasonal flu, but I've had seasonal flus before, and they weren't like this. I've never had a seasonal flu that was so long-lasting or so horrible. It also wouldn't explain why no one around me seemed to get sick.
Personally, I think the government fucked up. We already know there's massive populations of people who have the virus and haven't been tested. There were reports of travelers being tested in other countries, who would have had to have contracted the virus in some "unaffected" area of the U.S. By restricting testing early on only to people already connected with known cases or international travel, the government missed the actual first wave of COVID-19 as it spread, unseen. They're still missing it. It's April 24th and we still aren't implementing wide-spread testing, let alone testing of asymptomatic people.
Accrual Method (Dublin Core)
2273