Covid-19 Testing: It is More Than Just a Test & Made Worse by Donald Trump!

[AdSense-A]

By Marlena Ryan

The United States has been dealing with COVID-19 for almost seven months. And over this time period, I have read many articles and watched news reports about this deadly pandemic. While many people do recover from COVID-19, others have been hospitalized and even died after contracting this virus. There is still a lot that doctors do not know about this disease. One thing we do know is that it can infect people of any age.

Since March of this year, I have kept my children at home. I have learned about the COVID symptoms to watch out for and I have even read articles on how to sanitize and keep our home as COVID free as possible. But with all this information and preparation, none of it had really hit home until it became personal.

My family and I live in California where there are currently over 500,000 confirmed cases of COVID 19. And almost 48,000 confirmed cases are from children 0-17 years old. The county where I live in Northern California has over 3,000 positive cases with roughly 9% of those cases coming from children. These statistics are quite troubling. The thought that my family could be part of these statistics leaves me terrified.

Last Saturday morning, my 11-year-old son complained of having a headache. I gave him some Children’s Tylenol, filled his favorite cup with lots of cold water, and did not think much about his complaint since I thought that he might be just a little dehydrated. But this changed on Sunday when my son developed a fever along with a headache. By Sunday evening, my son had a stomachache and felt nauseous. I left my son in our bathroom for a moment so I could go grab a pair of disposable gloves. When I came back, he had vomited and was lying on the bathroom floor. My son rarely gets sick and when he does, he is usually not this sick. I took his temperature and this time he was running a fever of 102°F. I called the doctor’s office and spoke with an advice nurse. Monday morning, I spoke with my son’s pediatrician by phone. While the pediatrician did say that my son’s symptoms could be from several different viruses, she believed he had enough COVID symptoms to warrant having him tested. The pediatrician also wanted to have my entire family tested, but due to the testing guidelines in California, she was unable to do so. I was also informed that the results of the COVID test would take seven days, which meant my family and I needed to stay home until we knew the result of my son’s test.

Testing for COVID-19 has been problematic throughout the United States since the start of this pandemic. And it has become a major problem in California. Back in June, the California state government was encouraging Californians to get tested for COVID-19 even if they did not have symptoms. Testing sites were set up in communities throughout the state to facilitate this testing. But by July, California was facing a testing crisis. Testing sites became very limited and there was a shortage of testing supplies being sent into the state. Plus, new testing guidelines were put into place to assess who would be able to receive a COVID-19 test. Additionally, testing backlogs were growing, causing results to take seven days or even longer to get back to people waiting to hear if they were positive or negative for COVID-19. It is now August, and California is still struggling with high demands for COVID-19 tests along with backlogs and slow turnarounds for getting test results. Too many Californians are left for at least a week or longer, waiting to know if they must continue to stay home and quarantine for 14 days.

Americans have had a lack of leadership in fighting this pandemic. The self-described wartime President has de-emphasized the need for testing and has publicly said that he wanted testing slowed down as recently as last month. We have an administration who wants to get kids back into public schools and is desperately trying to make our country look like it is returning to normal. I am angry and frustrated with how much time has been wasted in the United States politicizing the real problems in this pandemic. Our federal government has had months improve and increase testing, to encourage all Americans to listen to the actual health experts, and to take the health of all Americans seriously.

Instead, time has been wasted by Trump downplaying this crisis, claiming that COVID-19 was a democratic hoax. Time was wasted by Trump spreading incorrect and dangerous information about COVID-19. Time has been wasted as Trump claimed that the virus would just one day go away. And most recently, he has wasted time trying to convince Americans that children are basically immune from COVID-19 instead of taking the health of children who are getting sick and even dying from this virus seriously.

It has been three days since my son took the COVID-19 test and we are still waiting to find out the result. While my son has shown some improvement, he still has COVID symptoms. Of course, I do hope that my son is negative for COVID-19. But hoping and wishful thinking is not going to make this virus go away. Americans need real leadership around this health crisis. We need leadership who will take this virus seriously and not treat it like a political problem because we are in an election year. The 1918 flu pandemic also happened in an election year, and over 600,000 Americans had died from the flu. COVID-19 is not a political problem. It is a health crisis that is currently killing Americans by the thousands each day. How much more is it going to take before America takes COVID-19 seriously?

[si-contact-form form=’2′]