I Got the Coronavirus Test. My Ordeal Was Just Beginning.
"Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism"
What the mishandling of my results says about the country’s lack of preparedness for the mounting outbreak.
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By ANDY CARVIN
03/15/2020 06:17 PM EDT
Andy Carvin (@acarvin) is Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, where he coordinates the lab’s monitoring of COVID-19 rumors and disinformation around the world.
Like so many individuals struggling to navigate the U.S. health care system in recent weeks, I’ve had to contend with contradictory advice, misinformation, misunderstandings and a suffocating bureaucracy struggling to take responsibility for anything.
On Thursday, March 5, I began my own odyssey trying to determine if I, too, had contracted COVID-19. In some ways, I was fortunate, as I actually managed to get tested for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. As a journalist and researcher who monitors social media for COVID-19 rumors and disinformation, I’ve seen countless first-person examples of people fearful about their inability to get tested, stymied by dead-end phone numbers and contradictory advice. While I managed to jump this hurdle and get tested, learning the results of that test would prove to a troubling ordeal in its own right and the beginning of what I would eventually describe on Twitter as my personal #covid19purgatory [ https://twitter.com/hashtag/covid19purgatory?src=hash ].
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