Michael Parnell was a cross country star when he graduated from Kodiak High School in 2016. But last year, he switched colleges, switched sports, and even switched countries. KMXT’s Jared Griffin talked with Parnell about living in Europe at the beginning of the pandemic and what it was like to come back home when COVID-19 hit and to discover that he had contracted the virus.
When Michael Parnell left Kodiak to attend Boise State University in 2016, he had no idea that his interests would take him to King’s College in London, England, in the middle of a global pandemic.
“I went on a study abroad for a half a year. And I ended up going to King’s College London. I liked the look of the school, and I liked where it was. And after the first week, I extended for the whole year. After a few months, I decided to try to stay there.”
At King’s College, Parnell switched majors to Film Studies, from a double major in Communications and History, and joined the varsity lacrosse team, a sport he had never played before.
“I picked it up pretty quickly because its similar to hockey, and I played hockey for a while here in Kodiak.”
He even got his own flat with some teammates.
“We have a small flat. It was a little rough with three people being in a flat with basically just bedrooms and kitchen. We have a balcony there luckily.”
One of those roommates, though, returned from a trip to Italy in February. And that’s when Parnell’s cough started.
“In February and March I had a cough I could not kick, but it was before everything kicked off, so I didn’t think much of it then.”
By then, Italy, a nation of 60 million, had over 30,000 confirmed cases and was recording hundreds of deaths each day. New York’s death toll had exceeded 1,000, and Kodiak had no active cases yet.
And it was about that time that London went into lockdown.
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“Our Prime Minister in the UK, Boris Johnson, he caught coronavirus and ended up in the ICU and he was on oxygen. And there was basically 24-48 hours where they weren’t sure if he was going to live or die. So I think that really helped the country come together and say that this is a really serious thing.”
King’s College classes went completely online, but that was actually okay for Parnell.
“You have ten weeks of schooling, of actual lectures, and then a month of independent study. And when you get to May, you have final exams.”
So for two and a half months, Parnell and his flatmates finished up school as they quarantined in their tiny apartment, their only respite — their small balcony so they could get some fresh air, and the one hour of outdoor exercise permitted during the lockdown.
His flatmates got very sick.
“He had fever, fatigue, cough and everything.”
These are young athletes, in their physical prime, who still succumb to these symptoms today, months after initially contracting the virus.
“They are just recovering now, three or four months later. One of the guys that caught it is a first team rower at King’s College London, and he’s one of the fittest guys I know. And he said that he could not eat without losing his breath, he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t go up the stairs for two weeks or so. It’s pretty serious.”
Young adults are one of the hardest hit demographics in the United States and Alaska. According to the CDC, 1 in 5 previously healthy young adults aren’t back to usual health 2-3 weeks after testing positive. And according to a study published this month’s issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health by UC San Francisco researchers, a third of young adults are medically vulnerable to the coronavirus, especially when compounded with the effects of smoking and vaping. More than a third of US teenagers and young adults vape, and that number continues to rise. But Parnell says that of his ten London friends who have been infected, only one of them smokes regularly.
Parnell planned to come back to Kodiak to work for the summer. After classes were over in May, he flew home and quarantined in his old bedroom. From there, he was able to reflect on the differences between how the United States and England handled their respective responses to the pandemic.
“At the beginning, both nations handled it absolutely terribly. Because it’s a smaller country and less people overall, they were able to do the full lockdown and stay locked down for long enough to control the virus.”
Once his two-week quarantine was over, he decided to get tested.
“My friend texted me that she had gotten a positive test result—this is a friend in London? Yes, this is actually my neighbor. And we figured that, my household figured that we should get tested.”
Parnell tested positive for coronavirus antibodies. He no longer has the virus.
As he looks at his peers, neighbors, and teammates reeling from the lingering effects of the coronavirus, he has this advice:
“Even some of my friends now are getting tired of the pandemic stuff. But it’s still a very serious threat, and I think that people really need to realize that, especially in the US.”
Parnell is now healthy, working a full-time job, and thinking about his plans for the future that may include moving to the East Coast or back to Europe when the pandemic is over.
He would like to remind his home community of Kodiak that even though there are no active cases at the moment, he believes it’s still important to wear masks and social distance as there could be undetected cases in the community.
In a text message to KMXT, he said “I want to make sure that the people of Kodiak can hear this directly from a kid who grew up on the island and has now lived through one of the hotspots of the pandemic with thousands of deaths in London.”
