French Suspected of Having Coronavirus Can't Get Tested for Three Weeks

© AFP 2023 / Valery HacheA man wearing a gas mask and a woman wearing an air filtering mask embrace at their window
A man wearing a gas mask and a woman wearing an air filtering mask embrace at their window - Sputnik International
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Sputnik talked to a Frenchwoman with suspected COVID-19 that hasn’t got a chance to get tested and confirm the diagnosis for three weeks.

Infected with COVID-19 or not? It’s hard to say without a test. Safia Monney, a 40-year-old actress and writer, was admitted to hospital with respiratory distress and a fever. However, she wasn’t tested for the coronavirus. Another woman who had been sent home from the hospital shared her concerns.

Safia Monney got sick three weeks ago. "I didn’t feel faint," she says, so she continued working. She was diagnosed with an allergy; doctors found some "infection" in her, and prescribed cortisone and antibiotics "if the symptoms don’t fade". However, her condition worsened: the woman felt pain in her chest and started to suffocate. "I thought I would suffocate and die," Safia said.

"They [the ambulance] arrived only 40 minutes after I had called them. They gave me a mask through a door that was ajar; I had to put it on before they went in to help me down the stairs – I live on the fourth floor. In the ambulance car, they measured my temperature and said that it was 38 degrees. And they were dressed like astronauts," the woman said.

"At the Salpetrière hospital, another doctor examined me and suggested that I had the coronavirus. She asked me about the dry cough that I had, as well as about other things. She told me that I had the coronavirus, and prescribed paracetamol because there are no other drugs. But she didn’t offer to test me. I was sent home. I was in the corridor, looking for a way out of the hospital… Then I went home by taxi (fortunately, the driver was very well protected!)", Safia said.

She had to take a taxi because the hospital hadn’t offered to take her home, despite the fact that the doctor had repeated several times: "Don’t leave the house, even for a walk."

"[At the hospital], I was completely at a loss. I didn’t even ask anything, I didn’t ask any questions. And only later, the next day, I thought that it was strange that the doctor hadn’t offered me to get tested. And this is a problem for me, because I am in quarantine, I can’t leave the house and I don’t know if I am infected or not," she continued.

One of the doctors suggested that she'd had a "panic attack". Having left the hospital, Safia doesn’t leave the house; she is observing the quarantine, monitoring her temperature and other vital indicators.

"Every morning I have to fill in a questionnaire, measure my temperature, pulse etc. Doctors call me depending on my answers. They call me once every two days to find out how I’m doing," she explained.

However, Safia is still in the dark about whether she is infected with COVID-19 or not.

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