NY Teacher Tests Positive For COVID-19 Again After 21 Days
A mother and teacher from the lower Hudson Valley says she tested positive for COVID-19 again in a second test some 21 days after first showing symptoms.
Julie Thaler told ABC she woke up on March 6 with flu-like symptoms and later tested positive for COVID-19.
"It was all manageable until the eighth day, when I spiked a fever of 102.7. It started with a cough and that triggered my asthma, and that was quite frightening," Thaler told ABC.
The CDC recommends anyone with COVID-19 to stay in quarantine for at least seven days after the symptoms appear and for at least three days after you have recovered. Thaler said she kept herself in self-isolation for 21 days and didn't leave her house until she went a week without symptoms.
Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced New York health officials were going to start collecting plasma from people who have recovered from the illness and then inject the antibody-rich fluid into patients still fighting the virus. It's believed this type of treatment could help people with the virus.
With that knowledge, the first thing Thaler did after feeling better was head to a New York City hospital to donate her blood and plasma. In order to donate blood, you must test negative for COVID-19.
The Yonkers mother and teacher was then shocked to learn she tested positive for the virus, for the second time, over 21 days after her symptoms started.
"My concern is there are a lot of people who are not going to get that second test, and they're going out into the world thinking that they're over the virus and they are immune," Thaler told ABC. "The truth is the virus lives in your body a lot longer than we think," she said.
Thaler is telling her story in hopes more people will stay home and take the virus seriously.