I see the thread's taken a few twists and turns
. To the original question, yes.
My wife has a history of RA and gastric related issues. With this in mind, I ended up taking her to the doctor w/o any expectation of having C19. Doctor sent us home and actually did not encourage C19 testing. Couple days later, my wife was so bad off I decided to take her to Urgent Care.
Interesting experience. This is a major facility but it looked like a ghost town. The didn't let you in. You drove up to the portico at the front, then doctors and nurses came out, fully garbed, and assessed you while in your car. Weird experience. Sent us to ER.
Getting to ER, another place that normally has a fairly full parking lot, a ghost town. Looking at # cars, had to wonder if they had enough staff on hand to watch the doors<g>. Pulling up to ER, looked like another ghost town. Just us. Went in to scope out the situation. They had a large canvas enclosure at the entrance w/two nurses who looked happy to have something to do.
Normally, you take your sick family member in and assist with registration if needed. That day, no. They took her in. Told me I could wait in the car or go home. After about 45 minutes, headed home. Talked by phone, but didn't see her again for 3 days.
Thought I'd scrape by, but no. My symptoms started a week after her's, and significantly different. She had most of the symptoms you hear. I pretty much only had headaches, fevers, and as it evolved, shortness of breath. Worst part of the whole thing, aside from general unpleasantness? How
long it lasted.
Days without evidence of improvement. At least with a cold, you can see its evolution of a 10 day period. This, not a lot of change day-to-day. Then, after about two weeks it, finally, started to lift. Closing on a month for me now, the last thing I'm recovering from is shortness of breath. Doing something lightweight, like climb stairs, play w/dogs for 2 minutes, or take a shower, left me really struggling. I can fully appreciate the need for respirators for elderly, who may already have diminished respiratory capacity.
Health department tracked us both, me because I was in direct contact, for 14 days after onset of symptoms. One criteria for declaring one's self 'recovered', 3 days at 100% and no fever. About 10 days no fever now.
In-between headaches, one can only watch so much Netflix or mindless TV. Things like reading, also triggered headaches. So, all I can say is, avoid it. It was a
really rough way to get two weeks off work.