Hello,

Just giving a heads up to what I and my doctor both considered a very fucked situation. I just spent a week in Japan, a country at high risk for COVID-19. I wore a mask and essentially tried to stay away from most touristy places (not my first time there), but trains and stations are still packed with people, so there's really not much you can do.

On arriving back to America (3 days ago), I developed a 102F fever, coughing, and aches. I went to a local hospital in Brooklyn's ER. I informed them of my travel, they provided me a mask, and redirected me to a private room and followed infection protocols (full face covers, gloves, aprons, etc.). I had a chest x-ray and testing for flu/cold/pneumonia/and about 25 other viruses. They all came back negative.

At this point, the hospital called the CDC requesting permission to perform the COVID-19 testing. The CDC denied the request on the ground that I did not have the most life-threatening symptoms: chest pain and shortness of breath. According to everything I read it's very likely not to have these symptoms if you're in your 30's and relatively healthy.

And... that was that. They discharged me, said I don't have Corona virus, since they didn't test me for it, and said I can ride the subway, return to work, do whatever I want.

Of course my doctor disagreed. She said I should treat myself as if I am infected. My partner is currently staying in a nearby hotel since we live in a studio apartment. I am choosing to perform a self-quarantine for 14 days. Fortunately I can work from home and my partner can deliver me groceries if I run out.

But I don't think that many people are aware of the fact that they're actively not testing people for COVID-19, even people who have travel history to high-risk places.

Edit: To answer some standard questions.

Do I still have symptoms?

Yes, Fever is current 101.6 (as of a couple hours ago), aches, and a cough that is persistent. I'm taking Tylenol and drinking a lot of water.

Is this real?

It's as real as I said it is. I returned from Japan. I'm sick. The symptoms are similar to COVID19 and I was refused testing. You can believe whatever you want, I don't care.

You have the flu?

Well, not according to my screens I don't.

Edit 2: I've taken some media inquiries already.

Edit 3: https://abc7ny.com/5974999/

Edit 4: Answering some additional questions:

Didn't the CDC just change their guidance?

Yes, the CDC added Japan to the list of high-risk countries on Feb 27 (evening). I went to the hospital on Feb 27 (morning). I performed a virtual follow-up visit with an ER doctor Feb 28 at 7:00pm to go over my case with the updated guidance from CDC. According to that ER nurse since the hospital still can't hospitalize me based on my criteria, they can't test me. So effectively, there is no change.

Were you supposed to go to the ER?

I called up the ER before I went. Told them about my travel, symptoms, and suspicion. I asked the receptionist what the protocol was and they said just come to the ER. Similarly, I asked them how I should get home, and they said I was fine to take any transportation I would normally take.

Go to the media!

I have already been contacted by over 15 media organizations, so I can't respond to them all. If I have the strength and energy I wanted to do a couple local/national organizations. However, I'm only talking to organizations who can guarantee that they'll protect my privacy and take it seriously. I need to disclose a lot of personal information (hospital records/occupation/residence etc.) for them to verify and run my story. Also doing Skype interviews while chain coughing into a headset in my dirty room isn't my best weekend activity.

Edit 5 (March 1, 2am): My fever has been in slow decline for the past days, it was around 101.6 when I first posted. High 100s that night. Mid 99 the next day and low 99s most of today and as of right now, either my thermometer is broken or I'm at 98.2. I've probably been through 4 fever/chill/sweat cycles in total and now I feel mostly normal from that perspective. On the converse side my cough is worse, it feels deeper and a bit more wretching. The constant coughing is also making my chest sore, not painful as much as exhausted. I can go for 30 minutes without coughing, and then cough nonstop for the next 2 minutes. It's a real mixed-bag.

Appreciate all the well wishes. Appreciate all the stupid conspiracy theorist messages too, they give me a good chuckle.

Some other random responses:

- I haven't posted my bill yet because I haven't received one yet.

- I did not originally receive any prescriptions from the hospital. I have since received a steroid for help with my coughing.

- The cough was slowly building up for 4 - 5 days before the fever hit. Started out as just a post-nasal drip like tickle.

Edit 6 (March 3, 10am): Day three of no fever. Cough still lingers, but the frequency appears to be heading down. I've stopped taking the steroids, just to be safe. Still feeling exhausted, mentally drained, and relatively weak. Outside of that, I have this strange light-headed/weak headache feeling. Overall though, I'm feeling a lot better than the day I wrote this post originally. I'm continuing to stay home and monitor my condition regularly.

With all of the changes and announcements in the news in the past couple of days, unfortunately none of them have resulted in me receiving an opportunity to get properly tested. Thanks again for all the well-wishes.

Edit 7 (March 9 - Final): Just giving everyone some closure here. I still haven't been tested, but that may change soon as there are testing options now available near me. I'm not sure if I would even test positive considering it's been 10 days. My cough is still lingering but much much much less frequent and no coughing fits. I developed a little bit of sharp pain in my chest (possibly from coughing so much) received an x-ray/ekg and it doesn't seem like anything significant, so I'm waiting for it to go away. Other than that, my energy is basically at 95% of what it normally is. My partner is planning to come back to the house at the end of the week to make it a full 14 days.

Thanks for all the support and kind messages! Stay safe out there everyone.

I'd like to preface this by stating that remote learning was absolutely detrimental to the mental health of my friends and peers at school. Despite this, the present conditions within schools necessitates a temporary return to remote learning; if not because of public health, then because of learning loss.

A story of my day:

- I arrived at school and promptly went to Study Hall. I knew that some of my teachers would be absent because they had announced it on Google Classroom earlier in the day. At our school there is a board in front of the auditorium with the list of teachers and seating sections for students within study hall: today there were 14 absent teachers 1st period. There are 11 seatable sections within the auditorium ... THREE CLASSES sat on the stage. Study hall has become a super spreader event -- I'll get to this in a moment.

- Second period I had another absent teacher. More of the same from 1st period. It was around this time that 25% of kids I know, including myself, realized that there were no rules being enforced outside of attendance at the start of the period, and that cutting lass was ridiculously easy. We left -- there was functionally no learning occurring within study hall, and health conditions were safer outside of the auditorium. It was well beyond max capacity.

- Third period I had a normal class period. Hooray! First thing the teacher did was pass out COVID tests because we had all been close contacts to a COVID-positive student in our class. 4 more teachers would pass out COVID tests throughout the day, which were to be taken at home. The school started running low on tests, and rules had to be refined to ration.

- "To be taken at home." Ya ... students don't listen. 90% of the bathrooms were full of students swabbing their noses and taking their tests. I had one kid ask me -- with his mask down, by the way -- whether a "faint line was positive," proceeding to show me his positive COVID test. I told him to go the nurse. One student tested positive IN THE AUDITORIUM, and a few students started screaming and ran away from him. There was now a lack of available seats given there was a COVID-positive student within the middle of the auditorium. They're now planning on having teachers give up their free periods to act as substitute teachers because the auditorium is simply not safe enough.

- Classes that I did attend were quiet and empty. Students are staying home because of risk of COVID without testing positive (as they should) and some of my classes had 10+ students absent. Nearly every class has listed myself and others are close contacts.

- I should note that in study hall and with subs we literally learn nothing. I spent about 3 hours sitting around today doing nothing.

- I tested positive for COVID on December the 14th. At the time there were a total of 6 cases. By the end of break this number was up to 36. By January the 3rd (when we returned from break) the numbers were up to 100 (as listed on the school Google Sheet). Today there are 226. This is around 10% of my school. As of Monday, only 30 (Edit: not sure of the specific number) or so of whom were reported to the DOE ... which just seems like negligence to me (Edit: from DOE official number. Id like to stress this isn’t the fault of the school just an overall system failure).

- 90% of the conversations spoken by students concern COVID. It has completely taken over any function of daily school life.

UPDATE (10AM Sunday): Reporter says it was an editing mistake and website has removed the false claim that the NYPD statement was made in response to a "Post exposé"- (though still no correction issued.)

You may have seen my post a few days back on using data to uncover wrongful ticketing by the NYPD. Though many said that media would "steal" this, I had no idea just how right you would be in one case. Check out this New York Post article.

After a Post exposé, the NYPD admitted on Wed­nesday it had been giving out $165 tickets to drivers who park in front of mid-block curb cuts, even though it’s been legal since 2009 as long as there is no crosswalk.

The NYPD admitted nothing new after The Post ran there first article on Wednesday night. I had received the quote with this "admission" from the NYPD almost a week before publishing this piece on Wednesday morning, and had worked hard through various communication channels to reach that point with the agency. It was only after I published the blog post with that response, and it was trending on reddit, that the reporter reached out to me to discuss it. Though they ran a first story that referenced my name on late Wednesday night, this follow up story on Friday dropped the reference to me all together and started calling the findings that led to the NYPD's admission "a Post exposé".

I emailed the reporter last night to give her a chance to make it right, but I never heard back sadly. Maybe we'll see them issue a correction, but that seems unlikely.

OK. Just had to get that off of my chest. Thanks for reading, and the continued support on reddit. There is no way my blog would be where it is today without all of you. More to come...

As Republicans have bought nasty politics to USA, this feels such an awesome message! Lets go out and vote!!

From on top my buildings roof tonight, thought I’d share, absolutely incredible