Songwriter, musician and producer Andrew Watt, who has worked with artists like Cardi B and Post Malone, has tested positive for COVID-19.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, the 29-year-old Grammy winner said he started to feel ill around March 6. “I couldn’t move out of my bed for days and started to run a fever,” wrote Watt, whose real name is Andrew Wotman.
He said he was diagnosed with the flu and told that he could not have COVID-19 because he had not been outside the U.S.
“The chills, sweats, and fevers did not stop,” recalled Watt. “I started to become delusional and then began the dry cough.”
Watt said he went to an emergency room, where he was denied a COVID-19 test “because of federal regulations” but given a chest x-ray which determined he had viral pneumonia.
He was later tested for COVID-19 by a private physician and received a positive result on Tuesday afternoon.
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“My fevers have gotten much much better and I have begun to have somewhat of an appetite again but it is very hard for me to breathe as a result of this pneumonia,” Watt said. “I am laid out in bed chugging Gatorade and using an oxygen machine to give my lungs as much relief as possible.”
Watt said he was sharing his experience because, as a healthy young man, he knows he will recover while others who are older or have compromised immune systems may not.
“I can’t stress this enough…This is not a joke. Stay inside, stay sanitized,” Watt wrote. “Please stop everything and take care of yourselves and the people you love around you, until we are all through this.
“To have the mentality ‘I’m young this can’t affect me’ is just straight up stupid and so dangerous to everyone around you. Social distancing is to protect someone’s mom and dad, someone’s grandmother…it’s not about you.”
Watt co-wrote, co-produced and played on such hits as “Señorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, “Wolves” by Selena Gomez and Marshmello and “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer. His most recent project was Ozzy Osbourne’s new album Ordinary Man.