A Washington D.C. news anchor is sharing his story about his battle with the coronavirus. WTOP’s Bruce Alan told reporter Megan Cloherty that he tested positive for COVID-19 back on Jan 11.
“I gave COVID-19 too much of a head start, and I almost paid for it with my life.”
Alan said he came down with a virus on New Year’s Day but that he took a COVID test a day later and it came back negative.
“If you get anything out of my story, I hope it’s to take any sign of COVID-19 — or any health problem — seriously and get checked out,” Alan said during an exclusive interview on the station’s website.
Alan said he visited an urgent care on Jan 9. for another test that also came back negative. Two days later, a polymerase chain reaction test; a test to detect the presence of a virus if you are infected at the time of the test, came back positive.
“I couldn’t work, of course, but I told News Director Darci Marchese that I felt OK and would surely beat whatever it was pretty quickly,” he said. “But I continued to feel worse.”
“They say COVID-19 causes “brain fog,” said Alan. “I don’t know whether that’s what I had, but during the two days I was home after my positive test — Jan. 11 and 12 — I ignored some pretty obvious warning signs that I was really sick.”
Alan said he was hospitalized for 12 days but still considers himself lucky based on some of the other stories that he has heard about.
“Take everything seriously,” he said “If you have any concerns, get tested and find out. If you even think you need medical care, go seek it out. The worst that can happen is they’ll tell you, “you’re OK.”
