VANCOUVER—Vancouver lawyer Kyla Lee is known in her community for being a connoisseur of potato chips, and for her expertise in impaired-driving cases and Indigenous law.

Now, she’s going public about her coronavirus diagnosis.

It’s largely been celebrities who have been up-front about their struggles so far, but the 33-year-old says she hopes that hearing from a “normal person” can get more people to take the pandemic seriously.

“I kept my distance from people and washed my hands frequently. And I still got sick,” the lawyer for Acumen Law Corp. said in an interview with the Star on Friday, after posting about her illness on Twitter.

Last Thursday, before the federal government had announced border restrictions, Lee travelled to the U.S. to speak at an Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers conference.

The day she arrived, Ohio Department of Health director Amy Acton was “guesstimating” that more than 100,000 people in the state had COVID-19.

Nonetheless, 150 participants showed up on the first day of the conference.

“People there weren’t taking it seriously. People were hugging each other and sharing a buffet lunch,” Lee said, adding that she tried to avoid people as much as possible.

To her relief, conference organizers cancelled the last day of the event, and Lee flew back to Vancouver on Sunday.

She went straight to her rental house in southeast Vancouver to self-isolate in compliance with health officials’ instructions, even though she initially experienced no symptoms.

By this Wednesday, she said, she had started to feel very sick.

“I had a fever, a serious cough and chest pains.”

She booked an online video appointment through the CloudMD app, and the doctor told her that, based on her symptoms and recent travel to the U.S., she had a presumptive case of the coronavirus and needed to stay at home.

“There’s no test available for someone like me, because I’m young and healthy and not in a high-risk category,” Lee said.

On Tuesday, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix confirmed a shortage in swabs needed for COVID-19 testing, and said tests were only available to people sick enough to require hospitalization, those in long-term care homes, health-care workers and people living on a First Nation reserve.

Meanwhile, Lee is trying to limit her consumption of news and social media. She said she finds it distressing to read about young adults dying from the illness while some people are making dismissive comments about the situation.

Lee said she hasn’t left her house at all, only opening the door to let her dog, Wrigley, into her small yard.

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There have been nearly 900 confirmed cases and at least a dozen deaths linked to COVID-19 so far in Canada, including eight in British Columbia.

“We can’t afford to be careless with our health,” Lee said.

“If you assume you would only get a mild case, you don’t know who you’re going to pass it to and how many people that can affect.

“It’s not fun to sleep propped up because you’re having chest pains. It’s not fun to not be able to get through a sentence without coughing.”

Lee said avoiding travel isn’t enough, and even people in remote communities should practice self-isolation and social distancing.

“There’s no guarantee I picked this up in the U.S. I could’ve gotten it in Vancouver because symptoms can take a while to show up,” Lee said.

Heeding advice from her doctor, and her sister who is a nurse, Lee is taking Tylenol for her fever, drinking a lot of fluids and pacing around the house to stay active.

She said she plans to complete at least two weeks in complete isolation. In addition to working for her clients, she’s also watching a lot of Netflix and grateful for her dog’s company.

“I’m still working because it keeps my mind off everything else. Since I’m self-employed, basically, if I’m not closing my files and billing hours, I’m not going to get paid,” Lee said.

Since she shared the news of her illness on her Twitter account, she said, she has been flooded with kind comments and offers from people to deliver supplies.

“I think most people are doing the right thing, and they’re thinking about how their actions are helping the community at large,” Lee said.

“Just keep doing it, even though it’s boring and hard to stay at home.”

Joanna Chiu is a Vancouver-based reporter covering both Canada-China relations and current affairs on the West Coast for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @joannachiu

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