Enzo Clemente, 43-year-old President & COO of ZenFi Networks, and his wife Joanne Clemente, a registered nurse, are the faces of a growing younger demographic in America experiencing terrible fear and anxiety in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, also known as COVID-19.
For the last two weeks, Clemente and his wife have sought medical advice on four separate occasions, from New Jersey to their hometown, in Wellington, Florida, in an attempt to diagnose his severe flu-like symptoms.
Read MoreAfter visits to an urgent care in Chester, N.J. and Wellington, Florida, as well as the Wellington Regional Medical Center ER, Clemente was finally admitted to Palms West Hospital in Loxahatchee, Florida, on March 13.
But even that admission took persuasion from his wife, who asked how the Palms West Hospital staff could even consider sending her husband home when he was only 43 years old and currently going on day eight of a fever.
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The perception that the COVID-19 pandemic in America is a virus that just effects the old and vulnerable, has caused the Clementes a great deal of mental stress and suffering in their attempts to get the coronavirus test.
A March 19 report by the New York Times said that in the retirement capital of America, even though this is a disease that is deadly to the elderly and easily spread by the young, only 33 people have been tested for Coronavirus.
Of real concern to Joanne Clemente were requirements to be even considered for a coronavirus test in the state of Florida.
“The criteria for a COVID test has been irrational and disastrous. I don't think there should be much of a criteria to be tested for the virus,” she said. “It seems like any person that comes into hospital that has these symptoms should be tested to rule it out. Because they are either going to be admitted to the hospital, or those people are going to be turned round and head right back into the community.”
When the Palms West Hospital wouldn’t test her husband, Joanne began frantically looking for other resources for help. In her pursuit for a COVID-19 test, she spoke to numerous individuals, including the health department COVID-19 hotline and multiple doctors at Palm West Hospital.
Finally, after multiple conversations with Florida Senator Marco Rubio's office, she received a phone call from the Florida State Health Department on March 17 at 8 p.m., and her husband was able to get the COVID-19 test within the hour.
Clemente has since been released from Palms West Hospital, and has been advised that he will receive the results in five to eight business working days after the March 17 test.
While Joanne did say that the criteria appears to be firming up a little, her next worry was what happens now that her husband is home.
“The truth of the matter is I don't even know how long the virus sheds for. Sheds is another term for being contagious,” she said.
Clemente is in isolation at his home but his wife is now concerned about her own health and that of her daughters.
“The current advice I have received on the conditions to be tested for coronavirus require Enzo to test positive, and for me or my daughter to develop symptoms,” she said.
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