Jasmen Rogers-Shaw and Chelsi Rogers
My 22-year-old little sister tested positive for COVID-19 almost two weeks ago. She’s a healthy, active EMT who recently passed her exams to become a firefighter – someone who’d be considered low risk.
However, a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the hospital where she works, likely led to her contracting the virus and facing a week and a half of fevers, dry coughing, body aches, loss of taste/smell, headaches, and vomiting. And during those horrifying symptoms, she ended up in the hospital with pneumonia in both lungs.
When I spoke to her over the phone on her second day in the hospital, she was alone, terrified, but resolute and fighting to be home. When someone tests positive for COVID-19 and is admitted to the hospital, there are no visitors allowed. But amid her crisis, my sister was committed to making sure people knew that COVID-19 has to be taken seriously – the health of everyone depends on it. She further said hospitals are ill-equipped to handle the number of sick patients and more and more healthcare personnel are getting sick. We would all do well to consider who will be left to care for us when front line staff continue to fall ill.
There are many false narratives being passed around: only older folks are susceptible, only older folks end up in the hospital, young people recover easily, it’s just a bad cold, Black people can’t get it, and so on and so forth. But let my sister’s story be a testimony. This virus does not discriminate.
Take every precaution that you can as advised by medical professionals and your local government.
We have long reached a point in this pandemic where folks need to realize our health is wrapped up in each other. So, as this virus spreads farther and wider, getting closer and closer to home, let’s all just be more mindful.
