WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd April, 2020) Country musician Joe Barron's routine of playing at least six shows a week in Nashville, Tennessee came to a complete halt when he contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which he suggests the American public not take lightly.
"My recommendations to the public in regards to the pandemic is stay home, stay home and just ride this thing out," Barron told Sputnik. "The quicker people stay in and keep out of contact from others then the quicker this thing will be over. Also, I think my case was moderate so it wasn't as bad, however, there are people that are dying from this disease so it's nothing to be taken lightly because it's deadly."
The 30-year-old Barron said he was among the first 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nashville, which currently has 391 cases, according to data from the Tennessee Health Department.
The United States overall has more than 190,000 confirmed cases as of Wednesday afternoon, according to data from Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus resource center.
Barron said he began to develop COVID-19 symptoms in early March after he came into contact with someone who tested positive for the disease.
"The symptoms I had were scratchy throat - that was the very first symptom I had - and then it led to body aches, chills, fever, chest pain, dry cough, fatigue and soreness in my eyes and a bit of a headache here and there," Barron said.
On March 12, Barron took a test for the virus and received his results nine days later.
"At the time I was one of the first I guess 20 to 30 people to get the virus here in Nashville so it was still pretty fresh as far as here in Nashville," Barron said. "It wasn't difficult to get a test at all, but also I had been around somebody who already tested positive for the virus so basically they immediately tested me."
Recently there have been testimonies reported by media or on social media of people in the United States struggling to get tested - even if they have symptoms - as the virus surges in the country with only limited diagnostics kits available.
US Vice President Mike Pence said during a press briefing on Tuesday that 1.1 million tests have been administered in the United States.
Health experts around the world are working on developing a vaccine and therapeutics to treat COVID-19 infected people, but a vaccine is not expected to be ready for use in at least a year.
Barron said as treatment all he could do was try to control the fever with medicine available at stores.
"Basically all you can do is take some stuff to control the fever, which I took Dayquil, Nyquil, Ibuprofen - they say that Ibuprofen is bad or that you shouldn't take it however I didn't have any complications with it and I was taking 800 milligrams at a time," Barron said.
Barron says he has been symptom free for about 16 days and is feeling healthy again. As far as playing shows goes, he'll continue to perform for audiences on social media as non-essential businesses and large gatherings in the United States are banned in order to contain the spread of the disease.
"I've saved enough money to kind of get me through the next few weeks or so but I'm definitely not playing any gigs right now at all," Barron said. "I'm doing some stuff live on Facebook and Instagram and asking people to send some tips if they have any requests or things like that."
As of Wednesday, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world has reached over 880,000, with more than 44,000 people having died and some 185,000 having recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus resource center.
