CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As COVID-19 cases rise across North Carolina, the people testing positive continue to be younger. North Carolina state data show people ages 25 to 49 account for 39% of all positive cases in the state
One Charlotte couple in their 30s is battling COVID-19 in the same house.
Amber Smith and John Meyer have been together for seven years. They work in marketing and met doing a pillow campaign in Greenville, South Carolina.
“We're like rolling through the store, and I was like, 'Let's go ambush the other crew, and we picked up pillows and started a pillow fight,'" Smith recalled. "And that's when I met him -- I whacked him in the face with a pillow."
She said six years later, he was on one knee, in the middle of a global pandemic, asking her to marry him.
“We had about a little over a yearlong engagement, that's when we decided like we wanted to, not really elope but kind of elope with our immediate family to Tahiti," she said.
They were married on Nov. 11, 2021.
This year was going to be their first celebrating the holidays as newlyweds.
But a few days before Christmas, things changed.
“I ended up collapsing," Smith said. "I was trying to like, push through it, and I had a fever."
John rushed her to the nearest hospital to get checked for what he thought was a sinus infection. But it turns out Amber had COVID-19.
It's an experience she said she doesn’t wish on anyone — especially the immunocompromised.
“I generally have a pretty high pain tolerance," she said. "I had cancer when I was in college. And so I've dealt with health conditions and issues and pain and whatnot. And so when I'm saying it hurts, it's hell. Like, it really is.”
Amber and John are now isolated in the same house. They both agree it wasn’t the holiday they hoped for.
“I was like, 'Oh my gosh,' we hung up all these cute decorations, and put the mistletoe, we never even got a chance to use it," she said.
Amber will be out of quarantine on Jan. 1. She's hoping to leave COVID-19 back in 2021.
Amber’s husband John tested negative for COVID-19 Monday.
They're both fully vaccinated and plan to get booster shots as soon as they’re out of quarantine.
Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
WCNC Charlotte is part of seven major media companies and other local institutions reporting on and engaging the community around the problems and solutions as they relate to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a project of the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative, which is supported by the Local Media Project, an initiative launched by the Solutions Journalism Network with support from the Knight Foundation to strengthen and reinvigorate local media ecosystems. See all of our reporting at charlottejournalism.org.