Nadine Sierra Shares COVID-19 Experience

By Francisco Salazar
(Credit: Merri Cyr)

Nadine Sierra has revealed that she had COVID-19.

In an interview with the San Francisco Opera, the soprano revealed that she got the virus in July noting that “she woke up with a sore throat. That morning, she didn’t think much of it. She had been careful to wash her hands and wear a mask outdoors, and she had limited her public interactions to the pharmacy and the grocery store.”

She said, “I didn’t immediately think, ‘Oh no, I have COVID. But then I noticed I started to get a fever throughout the day. Then the fever got a little higher and I thought, ‘Okay, maybe I do have it.’”

While her first test came out negative, when her mother started to develop symptoms, the two got tested and both tests came back positive. Her youngest sister also got the virus a few weeks later.

In the interview, Sierra spoke about the symptoms noting, “Some of the symptoms were actually really odd. I did have to cough a lot. But my odd symptoms was where I got an extreme rash all over my body. It almost felt like I had chicken pox all over again.”

She also noted that lost her sense of taste and smell and that “Sometimes you feel a little flutter, almost like you have butterflies in your chest. There were a couple of days whilst having COVID where that feeling was heightened to hours on end. It wasn’t painful, but it was very uncomfortable.”

In August Sierra, her mother, and her youngest sister recovered and tested negative for COVID-19.

In a separate Instagram post the soprano added, “I’ve had a heart condition from the time I was born called mitral valve stenosis and it seems that the virus has exacerbated it a bit. Because I have a valve in the heart that doesn’t function properly all of the time, it feels like butterflies in my chest and can be slightly uncomfortable when it starts to act up. As I’m writing this post now, I can feel the irregular heartbeats! My mother still complains about itching on her hands due to the COVID rash that spread all over her body when she had it. Her symptoms lasted for 3 weeks and were the most intense out of the 3 of us.”

She also noted that she was hesitant to share her story and “scared of the stigma that’s now associated with COVID-19. Yes, it is possible to recover from it and feel ok afterwards.”

Sierra returned to the stage in August and is slated to perform at the Berlin State Opera in 2021.

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