Coronavirus Outbreak: Country singer Sturgill Simpson reveals COVID-19 diagnosis, says he had to wait for a month to get tested

Country singer Sturgill Simpson has revealed that he is COVID-19 positive but had to wait for a month to get tested for the infection. The singer said he and his band were touring western Europe in the early months of 2020. After their gig at Charleston in South Carolina on 10 March, the plug was pulled on their tour and he returned home in Nashville. (Click  here  to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak) Simpson, 41, posted his picture – wearing a face mask and laying on a hospital bed – which was taken on March 13 when he was taken to a local hospital ER with “chest pains, fever, and pre-stroke blood pressure levels”. “I spent an hour listening to a (highly condescending) doctor refuse to test me because I ‘did not fit testing criteria’ and tell me why it was impossible that I had contracted the virus due to its extreme rarity and that it was not in western Europe yet during that same period (which we now know is incorrect) even though I was told by two nurses that I was the first person their hospital had walk in requesting to be tested,” he wrote in a lengthy note on Instagram. Here is his post

On 6 April, Simpson and his wife got tested at a drive-through facility in Alabama and four days later, they received word from the Center for Disease Control in Nashville that he had tested positive, while his wife had tested negative. “I should also add that the CDC nurse I spoke to yesterday told me that it reacts differently in a case by case basis and the White House briefings and the information they are providing is basically pure speculation causing fear and that the only thing anybody knows is that we don’t really know much yet,” he said. The singer said he felt the symptoms a month ago and yet is “still positive and contagious”. “… and now on quarantine in the dojo until April 19th and really wishing I’d taken my wife’s advice and put a bathroom in the floor plans… live and learn..” he added. Simpson also called out the Trump administration for its handling of the pandemic.