Pink can’t help but get choked up as she shares details of her and her son’s battle with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
On Friday (April 3), P!nk went on Instagram to share that she and her three-year-old son tested positive for coronavirus two weeks ago. Thankfully, both of them seem to have made it through the worst of the illness.
“Two weeks ago my three-year old son, Jameson, and I are were showing symptoms of COVID-19,” Pink captioned a photo of her and her son. “Fortunately, our primary care physician had access to tests and I tested positive. My family was already sheltering at home and we continued to do so for the last two weeks following the instruction of our doctor. Just a few days ago we were re-tested and are now thankfully negative.”
She also went on to call for mass testing for the disease, pointing out that the virus does not discriminate who it infects.
“It is an absolute travesty and failure of our government to not make testing more widely accessible,” she continued. “This illness is serious and real. People need to know that the illness affects the young and old, healthy and unhealthy, rich and poor, and we must make testing free and more widely accessible to protect our children, our families, our friends and our communities.”
She has also joined the many celebrities who are giving back amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“In an effort to support the healthcare professionals who are battling on the frontlines every day, I am donating $500,000 to the Temple University Hospital Emergency Fund in Philadelphia in honor of my mother, Judy Moore, who worked there for 18 years in the Cardiomyopathy and Heart Transplant Center,” she shared. “Additionally, I am donating $500,000 to the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Emergency COVID-19 Crisis Fund. THANK YOU to all of our healthcare professionals and everyone in the world who are working so hard to protect our loved ones. You are our heroes!”
She concluded her message with a reminder for her fans: “These next two weeks are crucial: please stay home. Please. Stay. Home.❤️.”
The “Try” singer joined Ellen DeGeneres for a video chat on Thursday’s (April 9) episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and opened about the symptoms that she and her three-year-old son Jameson experienced after contracting the disease.
“It started with Jameson, actually, and, you know, he’s three. Three-year-olds get sick all the time but he started with a fever March 14, we’ve been quarantined since March 11. [It] started with a fever for him and it would come and go and he would have stomach pains and diarrhea and chest pains and then a headache, sore throat,” Pink recounts.
“It sort of was just all over the place. Every day was just some new symptom. His fever stayed, it didn’t go. And then it just started going up and up and up and up and then at one point it was at 103,” she continues. “I’m calling my doctor, ‘What do I do?’ He’s like, ‘There’s nothing to do. He’s 3. We’re not seeing this take 3-year-olds out, so just stay home.'”
She says it was “terrifying at one point,” and then she also began showing symptoms.
“In hindsight it all makes sense, but when it’s happening, it’s such a weird experience, you don’t put it together until after the fact or until days go by,” she says.
She also shared that she didn’t experience the symptoms to watch out for with COVID-19.
“I didn’t feel good, I was really tired. I kinda had the chills,” she said of the symptoms she experienced. “I felt nauseous, but I never had a fever. I never had what they tell you to look for.”
Pink also talked about having asthma as a child, pointing out that she hadn’t needed a nebulizer for a long time. But the breathing struggles she encountered had her using one again.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe and I needed to get to a nebulizer for the first time in 30 years,” she says. “I have this inhaler that I use, this rescue inhaler, and I couldn’t function without it, and that’s when I started to get really scared.”
She was only able to get one test, which she used on herself. The results came out a week later, and it was positive.
“I already knew it. I knew that that was what it was gonna say,” she says.
She also talked about Jameson’s symptoms, which appeared to be worse than what she was experiencing.
“At one point when he started throwing up and saying he had chest pains and it hurt to breathe, that’s the point where you’re just kind of like, ‘OK, are we going to the hospital? What are we doing right now?’ Because this is the scariest thing I’ve ever, ever been through in my whole life.
“I thought they told us our kids were going to be OK,” she continues. “We were told our kids were going to be OK. I think when people started explaining what this disease is, it was too early to be able to name it completely and tell everybody what to look for.”
Pink had gotten some backlash for being able to obtain a test when so many were struggling to get one.
“I would say two things to that — I would say you should be angry that I can get a test and you can’t. But being angry at me is not going to help anything,” she notes. “It’s not going to solve the issue of the fact that you can’t get your hands on a test. You should be angry about that. And we should work together to try and change that. And number two, tell me anybody with a sick 3-year-old that if they could get their hands on a test wouldn’t take it and if they say that, I’m all calling bulls–t.”
Thankfully, Jameson’s fever has now been gone for two days. She also notes that her husband, Carey Hart, and their eldest child, Willow, did not seem to be affected by the virus.
“Willow and Carey are walking around the house like it’s a normal day, no symptoms whatsoever,” she says.
She also urged everyone to do their part to flatten the curve and help stop the spread of the virus.
“Every single person in the world right now gets to be a superhero, just by staying home, just by washing their hands,” she adds.
