BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Common Council Member Joel Feroleto says last week, he tested positive for COVID-19 and has been in quarantine ever since.
"I feel okay, the strangest thing is I don’t have a sense of taste or smell right now and I'm certainly more fatigued," he said in a virtual interview. "I’ve been doing everything that the health officials have been saying and I still wound up getting it."
"Do you have any indication as to how you got COVID-19, I know it might be tough to answer that?" Asked 2 On Your Side's Jeff Preval.
"I don’t," Feroleto said. "There’s several different scenarios on how I could have gotten it but it’s very hard to tell."
Feroleto says he experienced a sore throat and body aches, but never experienced a fever. Two weekends ago, he says he participated in a 100-mile bike ride through Chautauqua County.
"So I attributed the sore throat and the body aches to the bike ride," he said.
Feroleto says last week he went and got tested at the New York State Department of Health testing site near the KeyBank Center and that he's still dealing with the loss of taste and smell.
Feroleto joined Buffalo Common Council Member Ulysses Wingo on the ride. In fact, they drove down and back together. Wingo says that he has not experienced any symptoms and tested negative for the virus.
"There were not a ton of people in the ride and everyone was distanced from each other during the ride," Feroleto said. "Councilmember Wingo and I, we drove together we rode 100 miles together we had lunch together during the ride and we drove back together."
"Do you have any reason to believe that you may have infected anyone else?" Preval asked.
"I have no reason to believe that," he said.
Feroleto says he had a mask on when he went inside places.
"Have you heard from Chautauqua County officials about whether they’re doing contact tracing at the stops that you went to?" Asked Preval.
"I have not heard any of that no," Feroleto said. "Last Wednesday my fiancée received positive COVID results and right when I found out that she tested positive I immediately drove to the state testing site."
Feroleto says that his fiancée works in the medical field and at the time of our interview he was not comfortable disclosing where she works.
"How do you plan on addressing when to go out to public events again and when to do things not entirely virtual?" Preval asked.
"For me, I'm going to wait until I have two negative tests," Feroleto said.
He says that timeframe right now is unknown, and this is what his doctor is saying he should do. He also says he is interested in possibly donating his plasma.
