Arlington family recovered from brush with COVID-19. But some fears, symptoms remain.
A few days after testing positive for novel coronavirus, Lorenza Rodriguez thought she was dying.
The 48-year-old Arlington resident was having a hard time breathing one July evening, as she sequestered herself from her husband and her five children who live with them. As she panicked, she urged her two youngest daughters to keep their distance.
“I felt depressed,” she said in Spanish, “Mostly because my children wanted to hug me, but they couldn’t.”
Rodriguez and two of her children are among thousands in Arlington who have recovered from COVID-19. For 40 days, the family did not leave the house for anything except sunlight and gardening. Even after their quarantine, Rodriguez, who is diabetic, still avoids outings whenever possible.
“I feel scared that I could get infected again,” she said, or scared other family members may become infected.
Living in the most affected part of the city, Rodriguez has seen several neighbors contract COVID-19 as well. Her ZIP code, 76010, accounted for over a fifth of the 8,062 cases reported in Arlington, as well as 16 of its 107 deaths as of Sept. 13, according to the city website.
Arlington Fire Department officials have targeted the area, which comprises city hall and UT Arlington’s main campus, in its response, according to Fire Chief Don Crowson. He said in a phone interview the agency plans to launch more outreach efforts in October. Community testing is available at East Arlington Public Library at 1624 New York Ave.
The area, like the rest of Arlington, is seeing some payoff from local response and Tarrant County’s mask mandates, Crowson said.
“We’re starting to see some of the fruits of our labor coming back, we hope, in a more positive return rate,” he said.
In his update to Arlington City Council members on Sept. 8, he said numbers “keep getting better and better,” a fact he and officials attributed to Tarrant County’s mask mandate and outreach to southeast Arlington areas. Hospitalizations numbers in the city, which peaked at 153 in mid-July, have lingered between 35 and 52 since Sept. 1
“The numbers are getting better and better as we go along,” he told the council.
But he and other experts aren’t celebrating just yet — especially as North Texas-area schools resume in-person classes and after Labor Day weekend outings. He said in a phone interview the department is planning for another round of outreach to under-served areas in October and preparing sites to distribute vaccines if and when they are available.
“We’re not going to rest until we see the virus gone,” Crowson said.
A ‘perfect storm’
As of Sept. 13, 1,653 people in the area had tested positive, and there were active cases in 52 locations. Though Arlington is seeing fewer cases and hospitalizations than it did during summer, Rodriguez’s ZIP code, which census data from 2018 estimates is primarily composed of Hispanic residents, still accounts for the highest number of active cases.
Erin Carlson, a clinical associate professor at UT Arlington, said people in the southeast parts of the city are more likely to work in service industry jobs and live in multi-generational housing — two of several factors, she said, that make residents more likely to contract the virus and not seek medical care. Additionally, she said, people whose jobs do not offer health insurance or sick leave are particularly susceptible to sickness and exacerbated underlying medical conditions.
“It’s this perfect storm for COVID infection and spread of COVID in coworkers in the southeast Arlington community,” she said.
Rodriguez sought her doctor’s advice after she started feeling ill. The mother of six had been taking care of her daughter and son when she started coughing and experiencing a sore throat and body aches. After testing positive for coronavirus, her doctor instructed her to keep monitoring her insulin, keep up her diet and seek help if she couldn’t breathe. For over a month, her home went under strict lockdown. She and her relatives wore masks around the house, quarantined in separate rooms and used disposable dishes.
Threat remains, despite lull in case numbers
Rodriguez still doesn’t feel quite back to normal, even after recovering.
She has not regained her sense of smell, and her cough still lingers. She’s resumed her walks around her neighborhood, but tires quicker. Acquaintances still keep their distance from Rodriguez in the store and around the neighborhood.
Throughout the pandemic, Rodriguez has watched relatives and neighbors contract coronavirus or lose their jobs as nearby businesses suffer. While her husband has twice tested negative for the virus, six of his family members who live in one house are all sick.
Before she got sick, some in her family did not believe the coronavirus was real. Now, only one doubts the virus’ existence.
“That mentality that people don’t believe in it is causing more people to get infected,” Rodriguez said
Arlington’s cases may have dwindled in recent weeks, but people must continue wearing masks and social distancing to see continued responses, Carlson said.
“The only weapons we have against it, still, after all of these months are behavioral interventions,” Carlson said. “If we’re going to control this disease and continue to control it, it will be a matter of our behavior.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
