Charmed star Alyssa Milano, who revealed yesterday that she will join Tony Danza for a revival of their popular ’80s sitcom Who’s the Boss?, shared a disturbing photo of herself on Instagram today with a caption explaining that she had contracted COVID-19 in March, but that multiple tests had failed to verify the diagnosis until very recently. The actress and comic book writer, who is outspoken politically, said that the numerous inconclusive or incorrect tests she took suggest that there are serious flaws in the testing system that the United States is relying on, and that as a result it is impossible to know the true scope of the pandemic’s impact on the country.
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Milano said that, like many who have recovered from the worst of the novel coronavirus’s symptoms, she has continued to have months of nagging physical problems as a result. She went on to detail a number of the symptoms and complications, in the hopes of convincing anyone who still thinks the pandemic is some kind of hoax.
“I basically had every COVID symptom,” Milano told her fans. “At the very end of March, I took two covid19 tests and both were negative. I also took a covid antibody test (the finger prick test) after I was feeling a bit better. NEGATIVE. After living the last 4 months with lingering symptoms like, vertigo, stomach abnormalities, irregular periods, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, zero short term memory, and general malaise, I went and got an antibody test from a blood draw (not the finger prick) from a lab. I am POSITIVE for covid antibodies. I had Covid19. I just want you to be aware that our testing system is flawed and we don’t know the real numbers.”
You can see the full post below.
A recent poll found that Americans are, in general, not confident about the country’s response to the pandemic. With more deaths than any other country and hundreds still dying daily even after much of the rest of the world had gotten the spread of the coronavirus largely under control, most Americans are hoping for a shift in the federal response to the pandemic, including a single, national strategy for reopening and aggressive protections against the pandemic.
Questions about the efficacy of testing might erode public confidence further. U.S. President Donald Trump has often said that part of the reason the United States has so many more cases and deaths than most other countries, is that the U.S. has tested more people than other countries. During a much-publicized Axios interview this week, President Trump defended the U.S. policies on COVID by pointing out that, as a percentage people tested, the U.S. has a pretty low positivity rate. Calling into question the effectiveness of existing tests could undermine some of the only areas where Americans feel things are going well with regard to the pandemic.
