US comedian and actress Tiffany Haddish has revealed that she contracted the coronavirus this summer after being in contact with two infected people.
"I was working on a movie and someone in the movie contracted coronavirus. I wasn't in direct contact with them, but they sent all of us home and stopped the movie," Haddish says in a video uploaded to her YouTube channel, in which she shares her experience with the virus with US physician Anthony Fauci.
"Then they suggested that I go get tested. I went and got tested, got the results two days later, they said I did not have the coronavirus," she says.
However, a friend she had met a week before tested positive for the coronavirus, so Haddish decided to get a second test done. "I'm not feeling any symptoms or anything, it comes back two days later and they say I did have the virus."
After it was revealed that she had contracted the virus, Haddish went into self-quarantine with her dogs. She used that time, she said, to teach herself to do the splits.
"Then I went and got tested again, didn't have the virus, and then I got tested for antibodies, they said I had antibodies. That was three months ago," Haddish says. She reveals that she has now been tested a dozen times.
“I get tested again, no virus, and then I had them test me for antibodies again, and then they said I don’t have any antibodies. So I think I’m superhuman.”
Fauci, who is director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says Haddish did the right thing by quarantining at home once she found out she had contracted the virus.
"The most important thing is that you have the societal responsibility not to be propagating the outbreak. To be part of the solution, not the problem."
The two also speak about how the virus is affecting minority groups within the US, taking a greater toll on black and Latin American communities.
"They're usually out on the front lines, doing the manual labour jobs that require interaction with people," Fauci says. "Then when you look at the African-American and Latin population … they have a much greater likelihood of having the underlying conditions that means that when you do get infected, you likely would have a serious outcome."
Fauci says physically distancing from others is still the best way to avoid contracting Covid-19. He also comments on how the disease has come to have political implications within the US.
"The thing that we're facing that is unfortunate is the divisiveness in our society is making it almost a political thing," he says. "Trying to do public health things is the enemy of opening the country, that's nonsense. We should use the public health measures as a vehicle and as a pathway to safely reopening the country."
