SAN DIEGO — In the days after the March 3 primary, Democratic political insiders met to socialize and organize for what was expected to be a bruising November contest.
They were unaware that a far more formidable opponent was already in their midst.
Chula Vista City Councilman Steve Padilla was the first among his political circle to announce he had fallen ill with the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Within a week of Padilla’s March 14 announcement, he was fighting for his life, and another person in the circle, Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, was critically ill in intensive care.
A third political insider in the network, San Diego City Council candidate Kelvin Barrios, was hospitalized with a moderate case of the virus around the same time as Rodriguez-Kennedy.
Rodriguez-Kennedy said he met with Padilla at a political event the weekend after the election, and Barrios said he met with Rodriguez-Kennedy on Wednesday, March 11, at an office and had no recent close contact with Padilla.
Neither Barrios nor Rodriguez-Kennedy said they suspected their infections traced back to Padilla or election night. But the delayed onset or complete absence of symptoms after infection and the high number of people with whom Barrios and Rodriguez-Kennedy had close contact, has made it challenging to pinpoint how the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 got passed along.
“They don’t know if Steve Padilla was the first case, but he might have been the first to show symptoms,” Barrios said in a phone interview last week. “It was in our political circle, but we’re just not sure really how.”
Padilla, chairman of the state Coastal Commission, announced Friday that he was off the ventilator and out of the intensive care unit. “After an intense 3-week battle with coronavirus, the relief and gratitude I’m feeling right now are overwhelming,” he said via Twitter.
Barrios and Rodriguez-Kennedy, who are both recovering in self-isolation, shared with The San Diego Union-Tribune what it was like to be sick with COVID-19.
Rodriguez-Kennedy
A U.S. Marine veteran, Rodriguez-Kennedy said he learned to stay calm in dangerous situations. But when he woke up in an intensive care unit last month, gasping for air amid a cacophony of beeping monitors, he panicked.
The 32-year-old chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party said he had no underlying health conditions that would have increased his chances of getting sick. When he noticed his first symptoms, blunted senses of smell and taste, on March 13, he thought he might be getting sick with something more common, like a cold.
“The first thing I noticed was I lost taste of food,” he said. “I thought I must be sick because things are starting to smell differently.”
That changed the next day, a Saturday, when he developed a dry cough and a fever, and Padilla, with whom Rodriguez-Kennedy had been in close contact the previous weekend, announced he was sick and had tested positive for COVID-19.
“Steve (Padilla) came out positive that weekend, and that’s when I set my mind on, ‘This is probably COVID-19,’” Rodriguez-Kennedy said.
At that point, his mind was on prudent action, not fear for his life, he said.
“I think some people are expecting me to say I was scared at that point, but I’m a Marine veteran, and I’m trained to focus when these types of things happen, so I just did sensible things like, ‘Oh, I should get tested,’” he said.
With a fever and recent exposure to someone with a confirmed case, Rodriguez-Kennedy was able to get tested a few days later, on Monday, March 16. By then, he still had the cough and the fever, and he had developed more symptoms, including fatigue, nausea, persistent loss of appetite and muscle aches so severe it was hard to sleep.
“It’s not just muscle, it’s joint achiness too,” he said. “It hurt to lay down. There were periods when I was really, really sick, but I was pacing because I couldn’t lay down.”
Rodriguez-Kennedy said he was still awaiting test results on Friday, March 20, but his symptoms were starting to border on scary. He said he was having trouble breathing for the first time in his life, and his cough had changed and gotten so bad he started vomiting.
He called a nurse for guidance and the nurse, hearing his cough and shortness of breath, told him to go to a hospital emergency testing center. His roommate drove him to a hospital as Rodriguez-Kennedy’s condition worsened with alarming speed.
In the emergency room, he could barely sit up by himself and his attempt to get up to go to the bathroom left him gasping for air.
“It felt like there was less air in the room when I was taking normal breaths,” he said. “It just felt like the air wasn’t there.”
Doctors started giving him oxygen, confirmed pneumonia-like symptoms with a CT scan, and took samples to test for COVID-19 and other diseases, Rodriguez-Kennedy said. Within hours of his arrival in the emergency room, Rodriguez-Kennedy was moved to the intensive care unit.
He said he was determined to avoid being placed on a ventilator. It was avoidable as long as he could keep his oxygen levels high enough.
“I made the conscious effort to manage my breathing so I would not be intubated,” Rodriguez-Kennedy said.
But it was not a perfect solution.
At one point, his oxygen mask slipped off in his sleep and he woke, gasping for air, to the sound of beeping alarms on machines monitoring his vital signs. He groped desperately at the many tubes coming out of his body, trying to find his mask.
“I’m panicking for air; I’m trying to grab my mask, trying to put it on,” he said. “The nurses are trying to help me find it.”
He said he felt like he was drowning.
The nurses found his mask and saved his life even though getting close to him put their own health at risk, Rodriguez-Kennedy said.
On Tuesday, Rodriguez-Kennedy said he was resting and recovering in a hotel room the county has reserved for COVID-19 patients, because he was unable to safely isolate himself in the home he shares with his boyfriend and roommate.
Rodriguez-Kennedy said that having survived the virus, he might have at least some immunity to it. He said he wanted to donate plasma for COVID-19 research that requires samples from survivors, but he’s not allowed because of his sexual orientation.
Men who have sex with men are not allowed to donate plasma unless they have practiced abstinence for three months, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration policy.
Rodriguez-Kennedy said he plans to put his assumed immunity to good use, starting with doing all the grocery shopping for his household.
Kelvin Barrios
Barrios said he noticed his first symptom, a sore throat, on Thursday, March 12. The next day brought a dry cough and a fever.
He already had the flu once this season, but he thought perhaps he had caught another version of it.
The cough and fever persisted into the weekend, and he developed a headache and “very intense” body aches, Barrios said. He also noticed a blunted sense of smell and taste and a loss of appetite.
He said he continued to suspect he had a really strong strain of the flu.
After he learned that Padilla had gotten sick with COVID-19, he started to take his symptoms more seriously and stayed home. But on Sunday, March 15, his fever was gone, Tylenol was helping with the body aches and he was feeling better overall.
It was not to last. His symptoms came roaring back on Tuesday, March 17, this time with cold sweats and a troubling new addition: shortness of breath, he said. He noticed just walking to his kitchen left him winded.
The next day it was bad enough that he went to a hospital, he said.
“I was getting winded just getting out of bed,” Barrios said. “Putting on my shoes was a mission.”
With a low-grade fever and no recent, close contact with anyone who had tested positive for COVID-19, he was sent home without a test and told to assume he had the virus and self-isolate accordingly.
His fever, body aches and trouble breathing got worse on Thursday, March 19, and he found himself drenched in a cold sweat, Barrios said. His shortness of breath led to high blood pressure and irregular heartbeats, so he went to another hospital Friday, March 20.
This time, he was admitted, x-rayed, tested for flu and COVID-19, given blood tests and treated for dehydration, Barrios said. After about 8 hours, doctors said he could go home if he wanted to, and he did.
“But the big reason for the doctors to send me home — and the first time not to admit me — is because I’m a healthy 29 year old with no underlying condition, so I’m statistically likely to get better, which was true.”
On Tuesday (March 31), Barrios said he was at home recovering with his girlfriend, who had gotten sick after caring for him. She tested positive for COVID-19 and self-quarantined with what appears to be a mild case. He said they expect to end self-isolation in the coming days.
In the meantime, he was shifting his campaign operations to focus on calling older voters who might be isolated and in need of information about things like COVID-19, renter protection or how to file their taxes, assistance or just someone to talk to for a little while to alleviate loneliness.
“The campaign will come back around to normal later on, but right now we’re just trying to help,” Barrios said. “The goal that I have right now is just to check in with our neighbors. Do they need something and is there a way to help or be a facilitator for that help?”
Barrios said he is also exploring the possibility of participating in local research to help answer key questions about the coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it causes, such as whether survivors have some level of immunity. The research could help develop vaccines or tests to identify people who had already survived the virus.
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