HGTV star Erin Napier has recently said that she is wondering whether she and her daughter and mother unknowingly caught the new coronavirus, or COVID-19, when they fell sick earlier this year.
The 34-year-old shared a lengthy post on her Instagram account in which she reveals that she had fallen ill after traveling to NYC. She also shared that her 2-year-old daughter, Helen, and 64-year-old mother all had coronavirus-like symptoms last month; however, they could not figure out what they had.
She wrote, “I’ve been hesitant to share this because I worried it might cause alarm, but the more I’ve considered it, I think it’s something worth discussing so we can hopefully raise the alarm for the importance of IMMEDIATE serological testing for COVID-19.”
Napier said she started feeling sick in January after one day she woke up with digestive issues.
“I went in to work because I felt mostly normal,” she wrote. “By 5 pm, I noticed I kept getting chills and checked my temperature and it was 100. I took some Aleve and the fever dropped and I went on about my business.”
“I wrote in my journal a couple days later: ‘I feel like I have a cold, but not really. It’s like a half-cold. No congestion, but I can’t stop coughing. Still have low fever.’”
Napier consulted with a doctor friend, who suggested a flu test.
The mother of one wrote, “I tested negative for the flu that day even though I continued to run low fever off and on, about every other day, for weeks. No medicine helped control my coughing, and it wasn’t a productive cough.”
In early February, she said she had to undergo some blood tests because her fatigue was not improving.
Napier continued, “They told me ‘Everything looks pretty normal. Just a viral thing, most likely.’ By February 20, my symptoms resolved and I’ve been fine since. Helen and my mother (64 years old) caught it and had similar symptoms. They’re both fine now.”
“A few days ago my doctor friend reviewed that blood work again and says my low lymphocytes, denoting ‘the viral thing,’ could have been a result of COVID-19, though there is no way to know until serological testing is released widespread to see how much of the population has caught it and recovered without ever being tested during the illness,” she added.
Napier went on to say, “I pray this test happens soon so we know more about this disease and how it’s spreading. I wonder how many of us already encountered it and beat it unknowingly?”
“Regardless, I wish I didn’t see so many cars in the parking lots and entire families going inside stores to buy groceries. Please, please. Keep your families at home. Let one person go in and out as quickly as possible,” she added.
The first cases of COVID-2019 were detected in Wuhan, China in late December. Since then, it has spread worldwide, prompting the WHO to declare a pandemic.
Globally, the virus has sickened more than 276,290 and killed over 11,400 so far. The United States officials have reported 19,772 confirmed cases and 279 deaths so far.
