Even before her third positive COVID-19 test, 14-year-old Kylie Guess of Texas was particularly sensitive to looming natural calamity.
The Austin teen began speaking of the polar vortex and the imminent threat of extreme winter weather at least a week before it actually hit, wreaking havoc on a state that was woefully unprepared.
Her mother, Megan Guess, was left with a question regarding the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the elected officials who should have ensured the power grid it oversees was ready for what was to come.
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“If my 14-year-old was stressing about it, why were ERCOT and the governor and all the other people not stressing?” the mother asked during an interview with The Daily Beast. “Why did they not prepare when my 14-year-old was saying we need to prepare?”
The icy threat was five days away on Feb. 10, when Kylie was admitted to Dell Children’s Medical Center with a chronic condition unrelated to the virus. A COVID-19 test is routine for all new arrivals and Kylie had every reason to expect she would be immune after two previous bouts with the virus. Her mother says that Kylie tested positive and that the doctors determined she had contracted COVID-19 for a third time.
Megan had been surprised enough when Kylie tested positive the first time six months before. The mother has a rare autoimmune disorder and began wearing a face mask in grocery stores, movie theaters, and other public places two years before the pandemic. She was ahead of her time when the virus hit.
“I’m like, ‘Why is it a big deal to wear a mask over your face?’” she recalled. “I’m dependent on people around me to stay healthy for me to live.”
She and the rest of the family were immediately ready to adhere to whatever precautions the CDC recommended. She was puzzled by people who resisted face coverings and social distancing.
“This new idea that personal responsibility stops at yourself and you have no responsibility to look out for others,” the mother said.
But their son, 8-year-old Carl, tested positive last February, just as the mitigation methods were being formulated at the very start of the pandemic.
“He was really sick, but he’s better now,” the mother said.
The mother and the father, Shawn Guess, wonder if they might have caught the virus without knowing it in January. They have not tested positive, and nobody else fell ill as spring turned to summer and then fall.
But then Kylie began to experience symptoms. She tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 29, three days after Thanksgiving. She suffered fatigue and brain fog as well as body pains. She quarantined until after her recovery was confirmed by a negative test.
Kylie resumed her normal life with reason to believe that she had acquired some immunity. The unrelated chronic condition then caused her to be admitted to Dell Medical Center on July 14. The routine test upon her arrival was again positive.
She suffered no symptoms this time. She again quarantined until after she again tested negative. She resumed the life of a teenager who likes to watch such streamed musicals as The Prom with Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep.
“She’s very much 14,” Megan said.
Kylie also saw online reports of a huge polar vortex. She began telling her mother that they needed to prepare for a deep freeze, saying it would bring snow and ice even to Austin.
“She said it was going to happen, it was going to get so cold, and we need to make sure we have good winter clothes and we don’t go anywhere,” Megan remembered.
Then came the Feb. 10 admission to Dell Children’s and the test indicating a third COVID infection.
“It shocked a lot of people,” the mother said. “She feels cursed. She wants to know why. She wants to know what were we doing wrong that this keeps happening to her.”
This time, the symptoms came after the diagnosis. She again experienced fatigue and brain fog and body pains, but it was all more severe than before.
“She’s hurting a lot,” the mother said.
Meanwhile, Kylie’s brother, Carl, came home from school on Friday saying there was going to be 4 to 6 inches of snow.
“He kept saying that over and over again,” the mother recalled. “My children were ready. I don’t know why the state wasn’t.”
Kylie was still in Dell Children’s on Feb. 15, when the whole of Texas was hit by the wintry onslaught she had been predicting. The hospital was not spared and sent out a letter to the parents of patients, advising them that toilets were unflushable and hand sanitizer was taking the place of soap and water.
“We anticipate the temperature in the building will be more difficult to maintain as the temperature drops,” the parents were told. “We do have a limited supply of fleece blankets available.”
A number of patients were transferred to other facilities, but the evacuation was slowed by the shortage of places for them to go. A hospital spokesman did not respond to a query regarding a report that the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit had been flooded by a burst pipe.
In one small bit of good fortune to offset all her bad luck, Kylie still had heat and light in her room, though the internet was out. Her nurses remained on hand by sleeping at the hospital rather than risk the treacherously icy roads.
Kylie’s family also enjoyed the serendipitous blessings of power and heat at home. They even had running water. The mother said she would have brought friends into their house, but the Guesses had all been exposed to Kylie. Carl was scheduled to get a COVID-19 test on Monday, but that was precluded by the storm.
On Thursday, the mother and father wanted to make the 25-mile drive to the hospital and bring Kylie home. But Kylie’s doctor advised them to wait until Friday, rather than risk an accident; the last thing she needed was for her or anybody else in the family to be in a car wreck after all that had happened.
Kylie stayed at the hospital for one more night. Her family was at home and the mother wondered aloud where Kylie might have picked up the latest infection. The family has been staying home and when the father goes grocery shopping, he immediately washes his clothes and showers when he comes home.
“My poor son hasn’t been anywhere since March,” the mother said.
She checked a calendar and noted that Kylie had seen a cardiologist shortly before she tested positive. The irony is Kylie had gone there as part of a study of COVID victims. She will now very likely attract scientific interest as a teen who has tested positive for COVID three separate times.
“She’s having a very good eighth grade year and she was looking forward to going to high school, but COVID just messed it all up for her,” the mother said. “Now she feels isolated. Things are not going her way at the moment.”
Regarding COVID truthers, The mother added, “It is definitely hard for her when people don’t believe it, when they say COVID is a hoax. Really.”
The mother also spoke of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who had flown off from freezing Texas to sunny, warm Cancun, by recalling the Democratic challenger who had narrowly lost to Cruz in 2018.
“What is Beto O’Rourke doing right now?” she asked.
She answered her own question, noting that O’Rourke had organized phone banks of volunteers to conduct wellness checks on senior citizens, asking if they need food or shelter or transportation or any other assistance. The total number of calls surpassed 450,000 on Thursday.
“Ted Cruz beat Beto O’Rourke saying, ‘I’m better for Texas,’” Kylie’s mother noted.
A photo had appeared on Twitter showing Cruz jetting off with his family to Cancun from the Houston Airport, where he had arrived with police assistance. He has since flown back, saying he had only been trying to be a good dad and escort his daughters after they said they wanted to go on a trip.
“He seriously blamed it on his daughters?” Megan Guess asked. “That's being a great dad, Ted. Good job there.”
Of course, Cruz is too grand a guy to join the many Texans who were helping their neighbors however they were able. The state remained in disarray thanks to leadership that showed considerably less sense than an Austin 14-year-old at the storm’s approach.
“Governor Abbott doesn’t seem to be in too big a hurry to do anything,” Kylie’s mom said.
The virus is still out there, and other threats are sure to present themselves. Abbott and Cruz are elected leaders, but that does not make them worth following, most particularly in times of peril.
Kylie knew the state needed to prepare for the monster storm. And she would not have jetted away to comfort when it hit. She also knows all too well how seriously we have to take the pandemic.
But the minimum age for both a Texas governor and a U.S. senator is 30. Texans will have to wait 16 years before they can even think of voting for Kylie.
Maybe in the meantime they can elect somebody as wise as this Austin teen.
