Hi. This is 17-year-old Shelby. She lives in Utah. I like her hat.
Unfortunately, last week, Shelby started experiencing flu-like symptoms. Which is a really scary thing right now! She told BuzzFeed, "I had a runny nose, chest congestion, deep coughs, high fever, and had kind of a hard time catching my breath."
Shelby said she recently traveled to Los Angeles and Las Vegas and her parents were worried, so they called a local healthcare provider in Utah. Their call was transferred to a coronavirus screening line. "We answered the same questions with different people as we moved through the screening process. They didn't care that I had been in Las Vegas, but since I had all of the symptoms and I had been in California within the last 10 days, they approved me for the coronavirus test," she explained.
After Shelby was approved over the phone, she and her parents drove to the testing site. "It was only two miles from my house. We parked out front in a designated parking area and called the phone number they gave us over the phone. The person on the phone checked us in, and within 20 minutes they sent a nurse out to my car to administer the test," she said.
She then took a TikTok – because 2020 – and shared the testing process:
Shelby said it felt like she was being stabbed in the brain. The video went viral on TikTok, generating more than 15 million views.
Shelby said her drive-thru testing experience was all done while she was in the car. "They put an electronic device on my finger and took my temperature. Then, they did a throat swab. It was uncomfortable but not painful. Lastly, they did a 'deep nose swab,' which I was assuming would only be a couple of inches up my nose and a little uncomfortable. But, it ended up going down several inches, and it was painful. My eyes watered quite a bit, and it made me gag."
Shelby's drive-thru testing experience was pretty standard. She got her results the next morning – about 18 hours after she took the test – and, thankfully, tested negative.
Shelby said that even though she tested negative, her family is still taking the coronavirus seriously and practicing the suggested precautions. "My parents have us all social distancing ourselves, so even while schools are closed, they have us staying away from other people. We spend a lot of time inside or out in our yard with just each other," she said...and apparently she will be spending a lot of time with her pet snake!!!
