After Surviving COVID-19, This Woman Is Mobilizing Other Survivors To Save Lives
Friday the 13th now holds a new meaning for Diana Berrent, who woke up that day in March with a 102-degree fever and the feeling like an “anvil” was lying on her chest.
“There was nothing subtle about it,” she told HuffPost last week.
The 45-year-old photographer and self-proclaimed “news junkie” had begun canceling nonessential appointments starting in February due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. After attending a meeting with eight other people in early March, during which there was “no physical contact,” she developed what she believed were symptoms of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. When she attended that same meeting a week later, this time digitally via Zoom, and learned others were sick too, she was even more convinced.
“It feels like a lifetime ago but it was only three weeks ago,” said Berrent, who lives in Nassau County, New York. “Schools and businesses were still open at that point. I had just recently photographed an event at a local elementary school in a gymnasium that was packed with children and their families moving around in close quarters. I was terrified that I had infected people along the way without knowing, and I was desperate to get tested. Not because I need to know for my personal education, but at that point, I felt I had a moral and civic duty to warn my community and I couldn’t report it to the school district unless I had a positive diagnosis. I was hellbent on getting a test for reporting reasons.”
Berrent’s experience trying to get tested was challenging, to say the least. She was initially refused a test because she had not visited China or Italy during the previous 30 days, nor could she prove she had “10 minutes of close sustained contact with someone who had tested positive.”
-snip-
Feeling helpless, Berrent took her dilemma to her town and county representatives, sending a letter detailing her symptoms and her struggle to get a test. She posted the same letter to her Facebook page in an effort to draw attention to the lack of available testing.
-more-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/after-surviving-covid-19-this-woman-is-mobilizing-other-survivors-to-save-lives/ar-BB12hkc2?li=BBnb7Kz
