WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st April, 2020) ASHINGTON, March 31 (Sputnik), Barrington M. Salmon - At a time when fear of contracting coronavirus is at a fever pitch in the US and worldwide, Pittsburgh native Rich Schiavoni has been living in a netherworld of greater uncertainty and doubt.
Since becoming ill, he said he thought he might have COVID-19 but there was no way for him to find out definitively because he has not been able to get tested.
"I actually have all of the symptoms - fever, sore throat, fatigue. But my doctor said since I haven't been on a plane or been in contact with anyone who has been exposed, I can't get tested," Schiavoni told Sputnik. "I am actually very concerned that I can't get tested. I take care of my mom who is 72 and is a cancer survivor."
Schiavoni, an adjunct professor who teaches history and Political Science at Point Park University, a liberal arts college in downtown Pittsburgh, said he was in the midst of a 14-day quarantine as ordered by his doctor and expected to be under a quarantine until April 3.
"I can't help but be concerned. It makes me very frustrated," he said. "I've been sick for two weeks on Thursday. The doctor thinks I have a cold which turned into flu. Very few people are known to be positive here, and the system is not able to properly test people. Most people who want to be tested can't get one. I'm talking to my doctor and she's frustrated too. There's no way to know my situation for sure."
Schiavoni said he finds himself stuck in a kind of "weird situation" with respect to the requirements.
"I have to meet very strict criteria to get tested - be exposed to someone who has coronavirus or have traveled abroad," he said.
Schiavoni said be believes there is a shortage of available testing kits in the city and health officials and members of the medical community have had to ration them out.�
"They wouldn't confirm if there's a shortage of test kits," he said. "My doctor said the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is opening its own testing centers. Pittsburgh is doing these drive-by tests and hundreds and hundreds of people are showing up. If I go, I'm afraid I may put people at risk or be at risk myself. What they told me is if I develop a fever or shortness of breath, they don't want me to go to the hospital. I don't want be to be exposed or expose anyone."
Repeated attempts to reach the Pennsylvania Department of Public Health were unsuccessful.
Pittsburgh is not an outlier - the shortage of testing kits is a nationwide problem that the Trump administration has vowed for at least two months to fix. The US is struggling to produce enough kits to test more people but that effort has been hampered by a shortage of the materials used to run those tests. A failure of coordination around surveillance, contract tracing and establishing protocols around community diffusion of the disease has deepened the effects of the pandemic in communities around this country.
Schiavoni said his mom publishes a local weekly newspaper. Her company is deemed a necessary business which allows her and her employees to work from home. He said he customarily goes by his mother's home to help out but while he's ill, his girlfriend helps by checking on his mom, buying groceries and such.
"I will probably try to limit going out for groceries and I don't plan to go into groups. If I don't have it, I don't want to put anybody at risk and I know I have increased risk for exposure," he said.
Schiavoni said he has been self-isolating on the second floor of his home and is teaching his college courses from home.
Officials at Point Park University, which has one of the largest arts conservatories in the country, shut down the institution in response to the spread of the coronavirus.
"I was around a lot of students up until Spring Break. I would normally be teaching but the university has cancelled all face-to-face encounters," Schiavoni said. "Our students were ordered out of the dorms. And I had five days to move from on-the-ground to online."
"It's hard to do my job without seeing my students," he explained.
Covid-19 is sweeping the world since the first evidence of the lethal disease in Wuhan, China earlier this year. According to Johns Hopkins University, as of Tuesday, the US has more than 174,000 confirmed cases and 3,400 deaths. And in New York, more than 38,000 people have tested positive and 914 have died.
Meanwhile, public health officials in Pennsylvania say 4,194 residents have been exposed to Covid-19 and 50 people have died. It's unclear how many people in Pittsburgh have been similarly affected.
The governors of several states, including California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Maryland and the District of Columbia, have imposed lockdowns of schools, bars, restaurants, hair salons and what are deemed non-essential businesses. Residents are ordered to stay home and exercise social distancing - limited physical contact and staying six-feet from people around you - as a way to break the relentless spread of the disease.
Schiavoni continues to hope that he is Covid-19-free, but he has no choice but to accept his circumstances because fate has tied his hands.
"I'm starting to feel better at this point, I've also been sick for more than 2.5 weeks. I still have not gotten a test and now that I have fewer symptoms, getting one at this point probably won't be possible," he said. �
