State legislator describes his battle with coronavirus
MADISON - David Bowen is one of 325 people in Milwaukee County who, as of Wednesday, caught a virus that is knocking out healthy adults and causing life-threatening breathing problems around the world.
Bowen and his unwanted peers also belong to another special group: Those who have the coronavirus and know it because they were tested.
State health officials warn there are likely thousands more with the virus in the state than they know about because of a shortage of tests to measure the scope of the outbreak in Wisconsin.
“I just don’t think the system should work that way for the people who are having the intensity of these symptoms,” Bowen, a state lawmaker living in Milwaukee, said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Bowen asked his doctor for a test and was able to get one. But he said two more people were infected by him and only one was about to get tested — underscoring the lack of a complete picture Wisconsin health officials have about the virus outbreak here.
The 33-year-old is still recovering after a more than two-week process to rid his body of the virus. He was tested after symptoms he first thought were of a cold began to intensify.
“Once those body chills kick in you can never get warm,” he said. Bowen said he wore a winter hat around his home in a vain effort to shake the chills.
Then came the cough and unsettling tightness in his lungs and chest. And then “you are feeling the intensity of the fever,” sweating through sheets every night with a temperature of 103 degrees for nearly two weeks.
“It is definitely an intense experience,” he said. Without medications available to combat the virus’ effects, Bowen used holistic medicine and took a Vitamin C supplement.
Bowen began experiencing serious symptoms about three weeks ago, days before the Shorewood Health Department officials contacted him to tell him he was likely exposed to the virus. He said at the time he likely contracted it, the virus didn’t seem like an imminent threat.
“The seriousness around the virus wasn’t really being publicized or taken that seriously,” he said. “It certainly sounded like something happening in certain parts of the country, or halfway around the world and not a virus spreading in your own back yard.”
State officials are working with private companies in an effort to boost the state health care system’s capacity to test people for coronavirus and in recent days the numbers of tests have grown by 50%, or 3,563 tests since Sunday.
Last week, Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer of the state’s bureau of communicable diseases, told health officials that the amount of specimens the public health labs received for testing “far exceeds their daily capacity.”
Westergaard urged clinicians to prioritize tests for patients who were hospitalized and needed testing to inform their medical care.
Many Wisconsin residents — including those with COVID-19 symptoms and compromised immune systems — have reported being turned away for testing.
Matthew Piper of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin contributed to this report.