BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota — It started on St. Patrick's Day. Bloomington Police Officer Jerry Wukawitz was eating lunch when he noticed he couldn't taste his food.
Wukawitz had lost his sense of taste and smell and by the next day he had a minor cough.
It was still early on during the pandemic so Wukawitz wasn't sure if it was COVID-19 but he took off work and isolated; quickly, his symptoms progressed.
"Coughing got so bad. I've never had a cough like it," Wukawitz recalled.
About four days after Wukawitz, two of his colleagues started experiencing symptoms.
"Me and Jerry had just been in a squad for literally maybe 10 minutes to the event and 10 minutes back, and to think I got it that quick," recalled Sgt. Erik Norling in a video the city of Bloomington released.
"It basically felt like I got hit by a semi-truck," said Officer Erika Brown, also in the video. "It was scary seeing how fast it spread."
While Wukawitz isn't sure, he was told from a woman doing his screening at the Minnesota Department of Health that she believed he was the first officer in Minnesota to test positive for COVID-19.
"I was a ground zero patient in the city of Bloomington for sure," Wukawitz said.
While all three are now back at work, there are lingering effects from the disease.
Nine months after testing positive for COVID-19, Wukawitz said he still hasn't fully regained his sense of taste and smell — guessing it's only at 40%.
As a frontline worker, he is urging others to take COVID-19 seriously by practicing safety precautions such as mask wearing, frequent handwashing and social distancing.
"We don't want to take that home to our families either or spread it throughout our police department, fire department, EMS department. Because if we're sick and we're not able to go to work, we're not able to help," Wukawitz said.
Every month, Wukawitz donates convalescent plasma and platelets through the American Red Cross to help COVID-19 patients.
Nine months later, he still has antibodies and is encouraging others who have recovered from the disease to donate.
He added, "We're going to get through it. We're almost there. So please abide by the orders that are given to us and take it serious, be careful, think of others."
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The state of Minnesota has set up a data portal online at mn.gov/covid19.