Meghan McCain is the latest star to reveal that she had contracted COVID-19 in the past few months. However, the 37-year-old former The View co-host said that, while she is slowly improving, her battle with COVID-19 was actually not the “mild Omicron” case depicted in the media, and she and husband Ben Domenech “got very sick,” and she is now “fearful” about how long-term symptoms could affect her in the future.
McCain detailed her experience with the virus in her column for The Daily Mail (which she has written since her departure from The View) on January 26th, saying her husband “felt lightheaded and developed a bad cough” before testing positive at a nearby test center the next day. The conservative columnist said her husband was isolating in a separate room so as not to infect her or their 15-month-old daughter, Liberty, but then said, “I started to feel bad, but didn’t have the bandwidth or energy to go wait in line. Thankfully my sister-in-law had a leftover rapid test that she dropped off outside our house. After maneuvering the tricky at-home rapid test, I too tested positive.”
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McCain added that "mercifully" Liberty "never got sick." "But my husband and I got very sick — more sick than the 'mild Omicron' headlines and Twitter streams suggested," she continued. "I am still now, a few weeks out from testing positive, waking up feeling the aftereffects of a cold in my throat, getting fatigued easily, and unable to taste food or smell anything normally. I have been lighting candles all over the house waiting for this to change."
"Again, like so many people before us it was a challenge to take care of our daughter while feeling so lousy," McCain continued. "And we had to isolate ourselves from friends and family, just like we did during the early days of the pandemic. I do not want to sound like a baby, or ungrateful because I am well aware of how much worse things could have been, but COVID was much rougher than I anticipated given that we are fully-vaccinated. What I experienced wasn't mild, it wasn't easy, and I am still fearful of the unknown long-term side effects that I may experience."
McCain then went on to say that she is unhappy with the way the federal government has handled the pandemic – especially as far as testing is concerned, telling readers that her experience with COVID left her feeling "sad and pessimistic" about the future, as well as frustrated with the country's current public health strategy. "Shouldn't we have more readily available treatment and testing? I thank God my case ... wasn't worse. But for so many others it is."
She concluded by saying that like so many others, she too suffered with "post-COVID depression," adding: "The most sad and pessimistic moments that I have ever felt — since the initial months in lockdown — were after being diagnosed and sick these past weeks. I am a pretty optimistic person by nature and this has been hard for me to shake both physically and emotionally. I can't fathom how people without support, resources and international columns to tell their story feel."
