Diamond Powell Sr. was sick and tired of hearing that black people don’t have to worry about contracting Covid-19. Because he is black — and has been sick and tired with Covid-19. To the point that he thought he was dying.
Powell (pictured), a 52-year-old New Haven native and popular local DJ known as Diamond D, is coming out the other side after weeks in quarantine following a rough bout with the coronavirus.
“I’m still scared,” he said. “I’m happy to be here.”
He wasn’t happy to keep hearing: “Black people can’t get it.” “Do you know anybody black that has it?” “Do you know anybody that really has it?” “Can you tell?” “Can you tell me the name of somebody who really has it?”
So he went on Facebook, then conducted an interview, to proclaim that name: Diamond Powell Sr. And to offer the details.
In doing so, he bucked a trend in New Haven. Covid-19 has started infecting hundreds of people in town, across all demographics, some of them fatally. But many people, fearing stigma, have chosen to keep their condition secret, including some community leaders. In the process they have sought to keep secret details of public events attended by numerous people who subsequently got sick (and in some cases died). (The Independent has contacted some of the leaders, in various communities, and is honoring individuals’ desires not to speak publicly.)
Powell said the true story needs to get out so people will take Covid-19 seriously enough to try to prevent its spread. (Click here to read a story about how Covid-19 is in fact disproportionately afflicting the African-American community in cities across the nation.) Already he’s hearing from people grateful to talk about their own conditions without shame.
“People are making people feel ashamed that they have the disease. You’d be shocked how many people have tested positive, but they’re in this battle by themselves.”
Later For Diet Coke
Powell’s battle began on March 17, when he woke up with aches and pains. “My body was hurting. I had a headache. I was hot. I was sweating. I was burning up.”
By evening he had a 101-degree temperature. He called his doctor, who told him to go into quarantine in case he had the virus. As a diabetic, he was in a risk group for serious consequences of contracting the disease. He had been at some crowded events where he might have contracted the disease.
If you have trouble breathing, the doctor advised, then go the hospital.
From the 17th to the 23rd, Powell remained at home. His condition gradually worsened. The fever persisted. So did a dry cough. He lost his sense of taste and smell. His head kept aching.
Powell’s wife (she chose not to be named in this article) had been preparing for Covid. She stocked up on supplies, including cases of Poland Spring bottled water. Powell had made fun of that. “What are you buying water for? Nobody in the house is gonna drink this water!” Powell teased her. He couldn’t imagine himself drinking the water. “I drink Diet Coke and Bud Lite!” he said.
Now he started drinking the water. Just the water.
“I was hallucinating because of the fever. All I could think about is dying. I didn’t want to die. I had a feeling it was Covid. The only way I could describe it — it’s like having a migraine. The flu. A cold. A sinus infection. You feel like somebody beat you down. Like you had a fight. Like you a professional fighter and got your behind whupped.”
Taking ten steps from his bed to the bathroom proved exhausting.
His wife also had a headache and fever, but they lasted only 24 hours. She was good to go to help her husband. “She has been a godsend,” he said.
On the 23rd, Powell had a video conference with the doctor. It sounds like you have a viral infection, she said. I’m going to send you to be tested. But it might take a while: Yale might not get you in for five or six days.
“I was like: ‘Come on!’
“Then Yale called like four hours later. ‘Mr. Powell, can you be at our facility tomorrow morning at 7?’”
10 Seconds …
Anxious about the test, Powell couldn’t sleep all night.
“I was trying to talk myself to go to sleep. I was in full conversation, just talking to myself, just sitting up. No medication would help me go to sleep. Every time I would close my eyes, the anxiety and the stress, I would sit up in the bed … that’s how crazy it was.”
He headed out of the house at 6:30 to Yale New Haven’s drive-up testing facility in Milford. He kept the music off in his 2020 Ford F‑150 along the way. “I was in complete silence. All I was concerned about was this test. This thing consumes you. I have a wife, and I have five [grown] kids.”
He arrived to encounter a man wearing a mask who asked him to show his driver’s license, then roll down his window.
“As you hold your head back, I want to stick this swab into your nose,” the tester said. “It’s gonna go all the way down to your throat.”
It took “maybe ten seconds.” The man put the swab in a medical bag, sealed it. He bid Powell good-bye.
Powell went home. And slept.
… Then 10 Days
Then the wait began for the results. Day followed day. No results. He got word that the results couldn’t be located. Or maybe they just got backed up along with thousands of other people’s results at overwhelmed labs. (Read more about that here.)
Slowly, Powell healed. By Thursday, April 2, he still had a cough, but “my energy came back.” His doctor said he could return going outside but should avoid crowded rooms, wear a mask and gloves, and wash hands thoroughly.
Thus garbed, he accompanied his wife to a stop at a store. She went inside. He sat in the car.
On Saturday he made the trip to CVS to fill a prescription. His wife texted to him with news: “Yale got back your test results from California. Postive for COVID.”
Powell returned home — and “all of a sudden, I felt sick again. I just started sweating again.” The headaches came back. He didn’t know if it was psychological or purely physical, but his doctor ordered him back in quarantine another seven or eight days, unless he were to go 72 hours without showing symptoms.
He’s on the mend, he reported Monday. Hasn’t quite made it 72 hours without coughing or hot flashes. But he sees the end in sight.
Lending An Ear
Meanwhile, Powell is reaching out.
He started by posting messages and a video on Facebook proclaiming that he tested positive and urging people to take care.
“Yo let’s chop it up. Let’s talk,” he said, referring to friends “who have passed away.” “It’s a scary time. Let’s talk about it.”
His phone inbox lit up.
“Thank you for the inspiration,” one friend said.
“I’m scared to talk about it, because I don’t know how people are going to take it, how people are going to react to me,” confided another.
The conversations stretch on for 45 minutes to an hour in some cases. People testing positive, needing to “let it off their chest.”
His Facebook posts inviting discussion have elicited as many as 132 comments.
As New Haven approaches an expected sharp rise in cases in coming weeks, Powell is hoping more and more those conversations begin taking place.
