‘COVID-19 is with us’: Marin County’s top health officer tests positive for coronavirus
Marin County’s public health officer has disclosed he has coronavirus.
“Today, I was diagnosed with COVID-19,” Marin County Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis announced in a four-minute video Monday on the health department’s YouTube page and posted by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Willis is the county’s 39th confirmed case of coronavirus.
“It’s a clear sign of what we’ve been saying all along,” he said. “This is in our community.”
In the video, shot while he was sequestered in home quarantine with his wife and three children, Willis detailed the first signs that something was wrong and the days that followed.
He doesn’t know where he came in contact with the virus, he said, but Friday arrived with the virus’ red flags.
“On Friday, I began feeling feverish with a worsening cough,” he said at the top of the video.
Willis went to a drive-through COVID-19 testing facility. On Monday, he received the news.
He said he is feeling better than Friday. He has no more fevers, though the cough persists.
Willis was in the south Bay a week ago Monday for the announcement of the Bay Area’s six-county shelter-in-place order, he said, one of the areas hardest hit by the virus. His symptoms started days later. How he came into contact may also be related to “the work we’re doing every day on the front line,” he said.
Willis said his example drives home the message he and other health officials have stressed for weeks: Work together to slow the spread.
“Stay in place. Shelter at home. We all need to take this seriously,” he said. “My case is further proof that COVID-19 is with us.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 2:56 PM.
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