DENVER — Editor's note: On Monday, March 23, Jenet issued a statement reporting her results were not, in fact, positive for COVID-19, but rather had been misinterpreted by a physician. Jenet tested positive for a different coronavirus, NL63, which does not require that immediate contacts be quarantined, according to the statement.
Colorado State Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet (D-Commerce City) got a call Thursday morning informing her she had tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19.
She spent the rest of the day calling people she had come into contact in the last week or so.
When she spoke to 9Wants to Know from her home, Michaelson Jenet said a prolonged period of what she was told was bronchitis escalated Sunday night.
“I spiked a fever that night,” she said.
She was swabbed for the virus on Tuesday and Thursday, the results came back.
“My biggest concern is anyone I might have unwittingly exposed including my on children and my husband. You know, my children were sent home from college to be safe from the virus only to come home to be [potentially] exposed by their mother,” she said.
Fortunately, she said, neither her husband nor her children have shown any symptoms.
She’s currently isolating herself at home. She said she’s had a fever the last few days. “The highest I’ve gotten is about 102 degrees,” she said.
She has no idea where she might have become infected. She was in attendance when state legislators agreed on Saturday to adjourn the session temporarily.
She urged Coloradans to heed the advice of medical professionals. “Please social distance,” she said.
WATCH: A second state legislator, Jim Smallwood, tested positive for COVID-19 as we learned the first one, Dafna Michaelson Jenet, doesn't really have it.
RELATED: Colorado coronavirus latest, March 19-22: Hancock announces relief fund for small businesses
RELATED: Denver mayor says shelter-in-place should be on regional rather than city level if it happens
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Coronavirus in Colorado