3 minute read
Captured by COVID
Despite knowing the science, a young doctor and her family were besieged by the virus. Captured by COVID
By THYNEICE BOWDEN, PH.D.
Advertisement
When the pandemic hit, my daughters’ schools were shutdown from March 16, 2020, until May 28, 2020.
By this time my husband and I were working virtually from home, but I still went into the lab after the girls finished their virtual school and worked from early afternoon into the evenings. Their schools opened with COVID-19 guidelines and virtual school as an option in August of 2020.
We took the virtual option from Aug. 3, 2020, through Nov. 17, 2020, mainly because my 16-year-old was having asthmatic allergic reactions to seafood, nuts, and pollen putting her in the vulnerable population for COVID-19. Not to mention, I have worked in two top infectious disease laboratories in Nashville, Tennessee, so one thing that I do know is how to stay safe from a highly contagious virus.
By Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, my children had only been in school for three weeks concurrently in 2020. We could see that they needed interaction with other children, connectivity issues with virtual school were driving me nuts, their workload was greater at home than it had been with them physically being in school, and my 16-year-old daughter’s grades had plummeted.
I monitored the active COVID-19 cases at my daughters’ schools,’ which had decreased after September of 2020. My husband and I decided our children could return to school in January of 2021. After all, the schools’ COVID-19 policies were in place and my children’s class sizes were smaller.
On Jan. 5, 2021, after the first day back at school, my 5-year-old had a fever that night. We separated her from her sisters and let her sleep on a little couch in our room. I took her to the doctor the next morning, and she was diagnosed with strep, so she stayed home for two days. Then my 11-year-old had a fever 24 hours after taking her sister to the doctor, so I took her to the doctor, and she too was diagnosed with strep.
Okay, not surprised by this at all because when you have multiple children this happens very often.
Dr. Thyneice Bowden (left) talks in her lab at the College of Agriculture. Bowden’s entire family (above) was struck by COVID-19. (From top left) LaNecia Matthews, Korlyn Bowden, Thyneice Taylor-Bowden, Karis Bowden and Thyneice’s husband, Korby Bowden.
Photos courtesy of Thyneice Bowden.
Then my nephew, who was staying with us during the college break, needed to get tested for COVID-19 before he went back to Eastern North Carolina University. So, on Jan. 7, 2021, I took him to get tested for COVID-19 at Meharry Medical College’s drive-thru testing site.
He was concerned that they were going to dig in his brain so to ease his concern I told him that I would take a test with him especially since I had taken six COVID-19 tests prior to this one; all negative by the way. Well, the next day my test results came back, and they were positive, while my nephew’s test results were negative.
Shocked at first, I reviewed my actions trying to figure out how this happened. Once my daughters were diagnosed with strep, they should have been tested for COVID-19 too, but unfortunately, they weren’t. It is not uncommon for anyone, especially children, to have a virus and an opportunistic bacterial infection at the same time.
So, I took the girls to get tested for COVID-19 on Jan. 10, 2021. All three of them tested positive and then my husband had to get tested and his results came back positive. So, everyone in the house was COVID-19 positive except my nephew. Also, we found out a week later that my 5-year old’s teacher tested positive for COVID-19, too.
The day after I received my test results, I started to have symptoms of severe nasal congestion and fatigue. The first week, I
