Canadian RN: 8 Tests and 50 Days Later, Still Sick With COVID-19

A Canadian nurse sickened with COVID-19 months ago just can’t shake the virus, saying she's tested positive eight times in the last 50 days.

Tracy Schofield, 49, of Cambridge, Ontario, told CTV News she had her first symptoms March 30 — fever, chills, a headache and difficulty breathing. She tested positive for the coronavirus the next day.

Self-isolating at home the following two weeks, she said her temperature hit 104 and she could barely get out of bed, and lost her sense of smell and taste. And though symptoms mostly resolved, they haven't disappeared.

“I still to this day have shortness of breath,” she told the news outlet. “COVID-19 has taken a lot out of me, and it continues every day.”

She had eight positive tests since her first bout, and one negative test in between. She won't consider herself recovered until she gets two consecutive negative test results.

“I just want someone to be able to tell me something,” she told the news outlet. “Give me an answer. Am I going to have it forever?”

Brian Dixon, an immunology professor at the University of Waterloo, told the news outlet people react differently to the coronavirus, adding some may be infected longer than others.

“It’s hard to say what’s normal,” he told CTV News. “We all have a particular immune system that’s individual.”

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