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I live in New York City. I got sick and probably have the coronavirus, but there is currently no way for me to know. — a thread.
Over the space of a few hours on Wed night I went from feeling kind of crummy to having chills, shortness of breath, & a temp of 103. By Thurs morning my fever was broken and by Thurs afternoon I was starting to feel normal, so I went to the Urgent Care doctor down the street.
The doctor there, who also works in the emergency room of the nearby hospital, said she thought it was the coronavirus, but she couldn& #39;t test me.
Why? Because there aren& #39;t enough tests. We are three months into this pandemic and only people whose conditions are so bad they have to be admitted into a hospital are being tested. And even then, it currently takes *seven days* to get the tests back.
Doctor& #39;s exact words: “so if you are in bad enough condition that you need to be admitted to the hospital, you could easily be dead by the time your test results come back.” And of course, if you are that bad off, nothing will change in terms of treatment if you have the virus.
In New York City, the epicenter of the disease in the United States, there aren’t enough tests for everyone who has symptoms to receive one. And of course, this means that the official numbers of coronavirus cases are grossly under reporting the actual number of cases.
The criminal incompetence of the Trump administration combined with our broken, profit-driven health care system has created a system-wide failure of colossal magnitude.
/end thread
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