SANNIQUELLIE, Nimba – A Tappita journalist who tested positive of the Coronavirus has been discharged from the 14 Military Hospital after two negative tests.

The asymptomatic Jeremiah Gayflor, who worked for the Voice of Tappita, had spent two weeks isolated at the Margibi hospital before he was discharged.

On May 1, Gayflor told The Bush Chicken via phone that two tests were conducted on him on April 26 and on April 28. Both came out negative and health authorities told him he could leave the facility.

Gayflor had first sought treatment at the Jackson F. Doe Hospital on April 13 after experiencing a running stomach. After testing positive for malaria, he was treated for three days and later discharged when his condition improved, although health workers also took his samples to be tested for COVID-19. Three days later, the hospital announced that Gayflor’s specimen had tested positive for COVID-19.

Because he showed no symptoms of the virus, health workers at the military hospital told Gayflor he would not be treated until he became ill.

Gayflor says his family and friends were stigmatized when authorities in Tappita announced his case: “Whenever they passed somewhere, people will say, ‘This is the friend or family member of the journalist that the hospital say get the virus.’ It was too embarrassing for them.”

“My friends and workmates were blaming me for making them to go in quarantine, but I am grateful to God that today, I am told that I don’t have the virus and that I should leave the hospital,” he added.

Gayflor described life at the treatment hospital as challenging: “You can’t meet friends; you do everything in one room and [there’s] no good GSM network to communicate with friends and family members. I pray that none of my friends should be brought here to go through this kind of embarrassment.”

However, despite the ordeal he has gone through, Gayflor said he does not believe the Coronavirus is in Tappita, although he agrees that COVID-19 is real and in Liberia. He believes the hospital was “used by health authorities to announce the result.” Even so, he said it was important for the public to abide by all health protocols to avoid contracting the virus.

Just as Gayflor has been discharged, another journalist, Paul Ballington A. Chie, who also works at the Voice of Tappita has tested positive of COVID-19. Chie told The Bush Chicken that he had come in contact with Gayflor and had his samples tested at the National Reference Laboratory in Margibi.

Chie’s results are concerning, given his poor health condition. For the past eight years, he has been battling diabetes and he has been seeking treatment at the hospital in Tappita.

Liberia has now had 152 confirmed, of which 11 were announced on May 1. Additionally, 18 persons have died from COVID-19.

Featured photo by the Executive Mansion