Privilege and COVID-19: Reflections from Case 131

When my flight from London to Chicago landed, I had a friend pick me up from the airport rather than either of my parents who are both high-risk for coronavirus. Even though I knew there was no chance I had the virus, fear made me cautious. My mom being 63 years old, took all the CDC recommendations as Gospel and immediately banished me to my bedroom for 14 days. Each day, I FaceTimed my friends, complaining of my solitary confinement and boredom.

The day after I got back from the UK, a friend I had been visiting came down with a brief fever and was able to secure a COVID test but was waiting on results. I began to realize that my family needed to implement the strictest measures possible in case I was an asymptomatic carrier, but, I maintained hope that she merely had the flu or a different mild virus. On the third day of confinement, my joints began to ache and my throat became mildly raspy. As someone who has always been fever-prone, I panicked at joint pain because it was a dead giveaway for a fever. By the end of the third day, I was running a low-grade fever and decided to see if it persisted before calling a doctor. I woke up the next morning with a 101-degree fever that continued to rise throughout the day and a headache that made it painful to move my eyes across my room. I spent this day on the phone with my primary care provider, the Cook County Department of Public Health, a local hospital, and Northwestern Hospital physicians. In conclusion, I did not qualify for a test in Illinois even though I had been travelling and had all the primary symptoms. 

Not knowing who else to ask, I typed into Google, “when to call 911 COVID-19”. On the other side of the second floor, 12 feet of social distance, my parents sat watching me struggle to catch my breath unable to move an inch closer to my bubble of contagion.

The next day, I woke up revived and with a normal temperature! Although still in isolation and not feeling perfectly healthy, I was actually functioning somewhat like a human, unlike my feverish comatose state the day before. That afternoon, I got a call that my other friend in London had recovered but had tested positive for the virus. My stomach dropped. Around 4:00 p.m. I began to feel sluggish and cold, my face lost color again and my chest grew tight. A second wave of symptoms, hitting harder than the first. After I Googled calling 911, my family decided to drive (in separate cars) to a hospital an hour away which had been rumored to have tests. After providing my preliminary information, a nurse in a hazmat suit guided me into the emergency testing tent that had been set up outside of the Evanston Hospital. Alone, I waited in a sweltering make-shift examination room separated from other patients by hanging bed sheets. Lit by a fluorescent lamp, I listened to distant coughs from patients around me while I waited for a doctor. 

As I talked to four different physicians, each well covered in protective gear, I couldn’t help but think of their families at home. As the virus has only gotten worse since my time at the hospital, I wish I had thanked them even more and given them even greater reassurance of how grateful we are on the outside. There, I was finally able to get a test because I had contact with a known positive case. The next day, I got a call from the hospital saying that I had in fact tested positive for COVID-19 and that I would be contacted by the Department of Public Health to ensure the rest of my mandated quarantine and communication with known contacts. That evening, I was cited as Case #131 in Illinois, a title that I feel strange to own. 

I spent this day on the phone with my primary care provider, the Cook County Department of Public Health, a local hospital, and Northwestern Hospital physicians: in conclusion, I did not qualify for a test in Illinois even though I had been travelling and had all the primary symptoms.

Despite our vigilant efforts, first my dad and then my mom both came down with the virus as well. After multiple attempts, my dad was able to secure a test due to his symptoms and known contact with a positive case. With a history of heart attacks and cardiac difficulty, my dad was admitted to the hospital after his second wave of symptoms made it difficult to breathe. But, thankfully, after receiving some treatment for his lungs, my dad has been able to make a full recovery. My mom, as she had feared, was hit harder than either me or my dad. Because of her severe condition, she was not eating, drinking, or getting out of bed throughout the day. Luckily, her primary care physician placed her on a critical watchlist and gave my dad and I explicit directions on how to care for her at home and called our house three times a day to monitor her condition and make appropriate recommendations for her course of treatment. Each day, I sat in my room across the hall making sure I could hear my mom; if she went more than ten minutes without coughing I would sneak into her room to make sure she was still breathing. In another great blessing, after nine days of bed rest and close monitoring, my mom was on the upswing and has since made her way to a near full recovery. COVID has been one of the scariest challenges my family has had to face, so much so that it’s actually difficult to write about my experience with it. It sounds so stupidly cliché, but it seriously has left my family feeling more full of gratitude than ever before.

 As important as it is to share my story, it’s even more important to recognize the privilege embedded in my experience with COVID. Although it took perseverance, we were able to get access to tests in Chicago, just a few miles from the Cook County Jail where there are over 500 reported cases and less than adequate healthcare available to inmates in close quarters. As of now, the virus has cut short the lives of six inmates who would have received treatment at the same hospitals my family and I visited. Furthermore, black Chicagoans in general are dying six times faster than white Chicagoans from the virus. Reflecting on my story, it’s easy to trace my privilege throughout, from being able to self-quarantine at home, to getting tests, to the medical care my parents received. Although it was no doubt scary and challenging, at the end of the day we always knew we would get the care we needed. 

Alone, I waited in a sweltering tent separated from other patients by bed sheets hanging from the top of the tent. Lit by a fluorescent lamp I listened to distant coughs from patients around me while I waited for a doctor.

As a city with a long history of racial segregation and inequality, it’s an expected disappointment that Chicago’s coronavirus looks this way. Black families in Chicago, and the rest of the country, are facing a much more daunting virus than white America because they are living in a system not built for them. As the President works to silence voices citing these issues, such as the Surgeon General Jerome Adams, we must not likewise ignore the reality Americans are facing. The most dangerous lie being perpetrated about coronavirus is that it affects us all in the same way. It doesn’t. As it tears its way across the country, the virus exposes and exacerbates the inequalities that already existed. 

If I could get one thing across to you as someone who has actually had corona, it’s this: please above all else, do not forget why our lives have changed so drastically this semester. Yes, it sucks that we’re now all attending Zoom University. Yes, it sucks that we can’t leave our houses or see friends. Yes, it seriously sucks that we missed out on all the great events we had planned for this time. But please, remember that while you are in quarantine, the world is suffering from much more than boredom right now.