What it’s Like to Have Coronavirus

For 15 days, the cruise aboard the Diamond Princess was everything Carl Goldman and his wife, Jeri Seratti-Goldman, had hoped it would be.

Then the couple from California were told a passenger from a previous cruise had tested positive for a new virus that was infecting thousands of people in China. The captain doubled the ship's speed and returned to port in Yokohama, Japan, on Feb. 3, a day earlier than planned.

There, Carl and Jeri — and the 3,700 other people aboard the Diamond Princess — learned they would be quarantined for 14 days.

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Carl Goldman has chronicled the time aboard the ship, his and Jeri's transfer to Nebraska and how the new coronavirus is affecting him in a daily blog.

(MORE: What You Should Know About the Coronavirus)

In the blog, Goldman, who remains in quarantine, writes about the symptoms he experienced after developing COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. He talks about the daily testing (cotton swaps in the nose and throat and, um, elsewhere), gallons of Gatorade, video chats with his wife and celebrating a birthday in isolation.

In an interview with meteorologist Heather Tesch for weather.com, Goldman said he hasn't been frightened during the month-long ordeal, but he was intimidated at one point.

As more and more people picked up the virus, he said, 60 to 80 people at a time were taken off the ship.

Dozens of ambulances sat on the dock, sirens wailed, the media was roped off in one area with TV cameras and satellite dishes, other members of the media were circling in boats and two helicopters hovered overhead.

"That looked Like a scene from the Andromeda Strain," Goldman said.

"It was intimidating that way as we watched each of the patients who came down with the virus get taken off the ship and put into an ambulance and taken to the hospital," he said.

Eventually more than 700 people connected to the Diamond Princess became infected with the new coronavirus. Eight people have died.

Aboard the ship, the Goldmans, who own and operate a radio station in Santa Clarita, California, were confined to their cabin. Their best friends and travel companions, Jerri and Mark Jorgensen, were in the room next door.

They spent 12 more days on the ship. Goldman started his blog, which he typed with one finger on his phone after his laptop charging cord was damaged.

Goldman told weather.com the Diamond Princess became "a floating petri dish, and many mistakes were made."

But he doesn't blame the cruise line or Japanese officials, he said, because limited information was coming out of China and there was not much known about the new virus.

On Day 11, they were told they would be flying to the U.S. aboard military transport planes. However, Jerri Jorgenson tested positive and was sent to a Japanese hospital.

"Once we land, we will be quarantined for another 14 days," Goldman wrote. "The earliest we return to our home in Santa Clarita will be March 1. We had left Santa Clarita on January 17 to begin our vacation. Holy cow."

On Day 12, the passengers were loaded onto buses for the trip to the airport. Goldman said they spent five hours waiting to leave, and the buses had no bathrooms.

During the flight, Goldman didn't feel well. He had a cough and a fever, so he was seated in a cordoned off area of the transport plane.

Goldman tested positive for the coronavirus while Jeri was negative. They were separated in Nebraska at the National Quarantine Unit on the UNMC/Nebraska Medical Center campus in Omaha.

Goldman was taken to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit at the quarantine unit.

He said he had a low-grade fever, cough, fatigue and tightness in his chest. Medical personnel entering his room were garbed head to toe in hazmat suits.

"Despite all the monitors attached to me, there is no medication being given. My only medication is (drum roll, please) Gatorade," Goldman wrote. "This virus is so unknown, there is no cure except to allow it to work its way through my system. There are no antibiotics, no IVs, not even nose drops, just Gatorade."

The hospital team bought him a bright red University of Nebraska Cornhuskers sweatshirt to swap out with his beloved Michigan one. They helped him celebrate his 67th birthday.

On Day 21, Goldman learned Mark Jorgensen also had developed COVID-19. Jorgensen was taken from Travis Air Force base outside of Sacramento to a hospital in the city.

Good news came the next day when Jeri Seratti-Goldman tested negative.

"She now gets to pass one more test and she’ll be released next week. Jeri never had the virus," Goldman wrote.

He took pains throughout his blog to point out that for people without underlying health conditions or the very elderly, COVID-19 is not a devastating illness.

"Granted the coronavirus, COVID-19 is vicious. I went days feeling fine, contaminating everything I touched before my instantly rising fever gave me a clue, I was contagious. ... But my symptoms, along with our friends, Mark and Jerri Jorgensen are mild. Much less than a common cold.

Jerri Jorgensen and I experienced the rapidly rising high fever for a few hours. Mark did not. I still have a cough. Jerri and Mark never had one. I have been ranking my illness a “two” on a one-to-ten scale. If I wasn’t contagious, I would have been at work the next day."

Goldman spent 12 days in the biocontainment unit before being moved to a lower level of care. He volunteered to take part in a clinical study looking for clues about the coronavirus. As part of that, in addition to swabs taken from his nostrils and throat, the inside of his eyelids and his bum are swabbed.

Jeri Seratti-Goldman tested negative again and was released from quarantine on March 2. She returned home to California and went back to work at the radio station.

Jerri Jorgensen tested negative and left the hospital for a hotel in Japan before flying home to St. George, Utah, a few days later.

Mark Jorgensen still tested positive but was still healthy and remained quarantined in a Salt Lake City hospital.

Goldman said he must have three negative tests 24 hours apart before he can be released from quarantine.

He told weather.com he is most looking forward to sitting in the outdoors with his wife and friends and enjoying the fact that he's a free man.