After trip to Antarctica, Sacramento attorney says he and his wife have coronavirus

As the coronavirus totals in Sacramento County continue to mount, you can add in prominent Sacramento defense attorney Bill Portanova and his wife, Shauna.

Portanova, 64, confirmed that his wife was told Saturday that a test for her had come back positive and that doctors told them he should consider himself positive as well, despite them choosing not to test him because they wanted to save as many test kits as possible.

The couple are now self-quarantining at home and say they are now feeling like they have a mild version of COVID-19.

“We are completely shut down,” Portanova said in a telephone interview Monday. “We are trying not to even work. Groceries are being delivered by family friends and co-workers, and the kids stocked the house before we got home.

“We are really forced to do what I love best, which is binge watch great movies and television from the comfort of the couch, and this is on doctors’ orders.”

They had been traveling overseas last month and don’t know if their travel odyssey is the reason for their infection, but their experience provides a detailed look at how some patients in the Sacramento region are being handled by medical professionals once they suspect they are positive.

The Portanovas had been on a luxury cruise to Antarctica aboard the M.S. Roald Amundsen with a few hundred fellow passengers for a four-week trip that was to end with him returning to work March 17.

“We were in the safest place in the world literally,” he said.

But as the disease began to spread worldwide, authorities in Chile banned the return of the ship, despite the fact that no one on board was ill.

At one point, however, the passengers on Portanova’s ship had contact with passengers from the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam, which was finally allowed into a Florida port last week with 14 critically-ill passengers.

On March 12, before anyone knew the virus was spreading through that ship, the Zaandam and Portanova’s ship both stopped in the Falkland Islands at the town of Stanley, “which essentially has one main street with pubs, museums and points of interest,” he said.

“So we occupied the same space,” he said. “It could have come from their ship, although our ship quarantined itself for a full 14 days after leaving Stanley and nobody had it.

“But we watched the horror in the news that was unfolding with it, so we worried.”

While the Zaandam sought permission to put into port somewhere, Portanova’s ship was allowed to return to the Falklands, where they were driven to the Mount Pleasant Royal Air Force station and put on a chartered flight to Santiago, Chile, on March 26.

There, they boarded the last commercial flight out just before the airport closed at midnight for a trip back to the United States.

“The only way back home was through one of the worst places in the world (for coronavirus) and we had no choice: New York and (John F. Kennedy International Airport),” he said. “We actually went to a flight lounge.

“The airport was empty. Customs took about 90 seconds. There was no one there. It was completely deserted. We sanitized everything we touched and every place we sat.”

After a six-hour layover, they flew to Los Angeles International Airport.

“LAX was much busier, and people were not social distancing as much,” he said. After a four-hour layover, they caught a flight to Sacramento, and returned to their east Sacramento home around midnight on March 27 after a 46-hour journey.

“We slept pretty hard for several days, which we attributed to jet lag and stress,” he said. “But my wife developed a fever Tuesday night (March 31) and we both had sniffles and a little congestion.”

Shauna Portanova called her doctor. “She said, ‘Go test, you should both go test,’” Portanova said.

They drove to a Sutter Health test site in a parking garage on Alhambra Boulevard, where they were given strict instructions.

“You pull into the garage and the parking attendants give you a parking card and mark it with a big X, and they tell you to go to the top floor and don’t get out of your car,” he said. “And when you leave you don’t open your windows, just wave the ticket with the big black X on it and the attendant will let you out of the garage, which was darkly funny.”

When they arrived where the testing station was set up, they were told to decide who would get the test, and decided on Shauna, Portanova said.

“They say if you’re living closely as husband and wife if one has it the other has it and we’d really rather save the other test,” he said. “They knew we were coming.

“They had our files and they took blood pressure and temperatures and blood oxygen profiles and explained the shortage of tests. Then they take some type of a swab and shove it up your nose, not in a Q-tip commercial way. They drill it there until it hits the back of your skull twice, so they really go through your nose and they did each side.”

The test results came back about 5 p.m. Saturday, he said: She tested positive for coronavirus, he is presumed to have it, as well.

Both are now under orders to remain home until they have gone a week without any symptoms, he said.

“We’re both very tired,” he said. “My symptoms are consistent with a head cold, hers are a little bit stronger, she has some chest pain.

“But, really, the exhaustion is the hallmark of this thing.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2020 at 11:32 AM.