Randy: Alone and Sick With COVID-19

April has been a very long month for Randy. She fell ill with the novel coronavirus over three weeks ago and hasn’t been able to leave her apartment since. “I am quarantined both because I am sick and because I don’t want to get anyone else sick. So I have to stay in,” said Randy.

She is too tired to do much more than read and sleep; she doesn’t have much of an appetite but tries to force herself to eat fruit and soup to strengthen her immune system. Randy can’t go to the grocery store, so friends drop off food for her. The oranges she hoped for are sold out everywhere, but they bring lemons and limes which she eats in spite of the sour taste because she needs vitamin C. 

Randy needs to focus on healing, but she is preoccupied--she’s a hairstylist, and the salon where she works is shut down completely, meaning that even once she is better she may not be able to work. As a contractor, Randy gets no sick pay. She is nervous about affording her rent and her taxes, and surviving the crisis financially because she doesn’t have much savings to fall back on. “As a contractor, it’s hard to save money, because the amount you make every day or every week is different. There’s no set salary,” said Randy.

Randy’s small savings were drained by trying to get the supplements and medicines she needed to fight the virus. “What money I had, I used to buy the things I needed. Because I wanted to get well, and hopefully stay well.”

Randy tried to file for unemployment, but her claim is in limbo--the phone lines are still too jammed to process all the applicants.”I filed on the 15th of March, and I just heard from the unemployment office,” said Randy. 

In the meantime, Randy received a $1,000 emergency cash payment from Humanity Forward through a partnership between SaverLife and Neighborhood Trust to help her ride out the crisis. “I was able to pay my landlord for March, since it was due at the end of the month, and that was a huge relief...that took a weight off my shoulders.”