Sturgill Simpson has tested positive for the coronavirus, but it took him nearly a month to find out.
The country singer detailed his ordeal in an Instagram post, explaining that after touring Western Europe and the US earlier this year, he was hospitalized on March 13th “due to chest pains, fever, and pre-stroke blood pressure levels.”
However, as Simpson recounted, at the time he was not tested for COVID-19: “I spent an hour listening to a (highly condescending) Doctor refuse to test me because I ‘did not fit testing criteria’ and tell me why it was impossible that I had contracted the virus due to its extreme rarity and that it was not in western Europe yet during that same period (which we now know is incorrect) even though I was told by two nurses that I was the first person their hospital had walk in requesting to be tested.”
It was only a month later, after a testing drive-thru opened near his hometown in Alabama, that Simpson finally got confirmation of his diagnosis. “Yesterday on Friday April 10th, after almost one month without any symptoms, I received a call from the Nashville CDC stating that my test resulted in a positive detection for Covid-19. My wife (who has been by my side since Europe) tested negative,” he said.
Simpson used the rest of his post to rail against the Trump administration for disseminating misinformation during its daily White House briefings. “I should also add that the CDC nurse I spoke to yesterday told me that [the virus] reacts differently in a case by case basis and the White House briefings and the information they are providing is basically pure speculation causing fear and that the only thing anybody knows is that we don’t really know much yet,” he commented.
“All I know is I first felt symptoms a month ago yet Im still positive and contagious and now on quarantine in the dojo until April 19th and really wishing Id taken my wife’s advice and put a bathroom in the floor plans..live and learn,” Simpson added.
“But hey,” he concluded, “at least our Government appointed task force headed by a man who does not believe in science is against mass testing and we now have a second task force in the works to ‘open America back up for business!’ Dick Daddy out.”
