COVID rumours make bad situations worse

Yarmouth woman decribes experience with COVID, rumours and lies

A Yarmouth woman who, along with her partner, tested positive for COVID-19 says the way they were treated and talked about was the worst part of being diagnosed.

Darlene Vickery wants to share her experience because she worries that COVID shaming could make people fearful to be tested, or to even be scared to talk about places they may have been before knowing they were positive.

For Vickery, her experience happened before the current provincial lockdown. Her partner, Mark Symonds, is a rotational worker from out West, a job he’s held for about a dozen years. At his workplace, workers are tested two times a week. Over the past year, he’s done the rotational quarantine whenever he’s come home.

During his isolation periods, Vickery lived in their camper. Their visits consisted of him inside their home and her standing in the yard.

“We had to do the social distancing thing,” she said during a telephone interview. “When I know he’s coming home on rotation I even make sure I have plenty of stuff in the house so I don’t have to go out.”

At work, she keeps to her personal office, where she’s masked. She tells staff of her situation. “I want to keep everybody safe.”

“Then they changed the rotational workers’ rules, meaning rotational workers can co-habitat with their families. But they’re not allowed to go inside any public places. We followed those rules,” she says. “First he had to get tested two times when he was home. Then the rule changed to three times.”

For his latest visit home, Symonds arrived on Thursday, April 15 and had another COVID test that day after arriving. The test came back the following day as negative. He had an appointment that day with a specialist at the QEII in Halifax. The hospital was aware of his circumstance. The province’s rules state that during self-isolation, rotational workers can attend necessary medical appointments. Vickery, who had the day off from work, says they took all of the necessary and required precautions.

When they came back home from the medical appointment, they stuck to home and their yard. Again, the rules say rotational workers can spend time outside on their own properties.

On Sunday, April 18, Symonds learned that two coworkers had tested positive for COVID. He and Vickery booked tests.

“We immediately went into lockdown. I didn’t go to work again. We both got tests done on Tuesday. Wednesday, we got the call that he was positive. And then I got a call that I was positive,” Vickery says.

She admits there is a fear of the unknown.

“Am I going to get really sick and not be able to see my grandkids who I haven’t seen in a couple of years because they live in Alberta and B.C., or my daughters?” says Vickery, who is usually the one always hounding others about keeping things clean and sanitized.

“I was afraid, did I pass it on to people, even though I knew I hadn’t. I was also afraid of what are people going to say, even though I know I was keeping everyone safe.”

Fortunately for her and her partner, they did not get seriously ill.

“He was feeling like he had a head cold, sinuses. I felt like I had the chills. You know when you’re bone-chilled cold and you can’t warm yourself up, that’s how I felt,” she says.

While they had some COVID symptoms, they didn’t have all of them. There was no fever, no difficulty breathing.

When contact tracing occurred and they were asked where they had been before their positive tests, it had only been the QEII.

COVID RUMOURS

But that’s not what the rumours in their hometown said. On social media, they were accused of spreading COVID at places they hadn’t been to. Vickery names off at least four places the rumours said they had visited. They had been to none.

Neighbours on their street were harassed too, she says, with people saying they had tested positive as well. She says they didn’t hide their diagnosis with their closest neighbours and suggested out of an abundance of caution they be tested.

“We knew we weren’t around them, but just to be safe,” she says. “They went and got tested and they all came back negative.”

And yet people still spread falsehoods.

“Your whole street has COVID,” she says someone posted online.

Vickery says she knows people’s behaviour was based on fear. Still, it was shocking and discouraging.

“The judging of people. No wonder people are afraid to go get tested, because if they test positive, what are people going to say?” she says.

She was even reluctant to reach out to anyone to pick up a prescription for her.

“I had run out of my heart meds and I didn’t even dare to get anybody to go get them. I went six days without my heart meds,” she says.

Still, she describes herself as someone with broad shoulders. But other people, she worries, may not have that same fortitude if they are going through COVID and what can be a scary and uncertain experience.

COVID does not negate the need for compassion, she says.

Public Health, Vickery says, was great throughout. They were contacted regularly. Their temperatures were recorded. There was a self-check they were walked through each day. They could ask any questions they had. They had access 24 hours a day to a doctor if needed.

“They were just awesome,” Vickery says. “I don’t have anything negative to say about Public Health. They were great.”

They took all of their direction from Public Health, she says.

On April 30, they received a letter from Public Health telling them: “Please be advised that as of April 30, 2021, you are no longer required to self-isolate. You have met all necessary criteria to be considered non-infectious for COVID-19.”

Yet even after receiving that notification, people still accused them of wilfully spreading COVID when they were seen going for a drive.

“People shouldn’t be so quick to judge,” Vickery says. “I love my community. I love Yarmouth. I love the tricounties. I want people to be safe.”