GARY- The Health Commissioner for the city of Gary has tested positive for COVID-19.
Dr. Roland Walker told Lakeshore Public Radio that he is a little scared, but educating people and health are among his top priorities, so he felt people needed to be told about his test results.
"I have been asymptomatic so my reaction is that I know that I'm one of those probably 80 percent of people who are positive and don't show signs and it's kind of scary to me because I'm a first responder, so is my wife, we are both physicians. And I know that I have a daughter and my parents are in my home and I know that I could expose them so that always is you know worrisome," Walker says
Walker says his wife and daughter tested negative, but his parents, who are elderly, tested positive.
"They are in their eighties and so I know that there is a possibility that I exposed them, maybe they exposed me," Walker says. "Either way we know that the case, being older they have comorbidities and it is you know kind of scary."
His father was sick and now he is well. But his mother is very sick and is having a rough time.
Walker doesn't know where he contracted the virus, but he assumes he got it seeing patients. He is a pediatric doctor and sees mostly kids. He says he always wears a mask when he sees patients and typically children have not had a lot of serious complications with COVID-19. But Walker says he is the health commissioner and he makes a lot of public appearances in that role, so it's also possible he could have gotten it out in public.
