Tennis champ Serena Williams has announced that she will be spending the next six weeks in solitude amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
“Spending the next 6 weeks in solitude. Being a wife. Being a mom. Cooking. Cleaning. Spring cleaning. Face mask. Makeup tutorials. I’ll let you know how it goes…. stay safe everyone. This is serious,” Williams wrote.
She posted the message alongside a video of her getting her makeup done.
The athlete is not taking any chances. In 2017, Williams underwent an emergency cesarean section during the birth of her daughter. As a result, Williams had to have multiple surgeries after suffering a pulmonary embolism.
The virus appears to impact the elderly the most, as well as those with pre-existing medical conditions.
“It began with a pulmonary embolism, which is a condition in which one or more arteries in the lungs becomes blocked by a blood clot. Because of my medical history with this problem, I live in fear of this situation. So, when I fell short of breath, I didn’t wait a second to alert the nurses,” she wrote in an op-ed to CNN in 2018.
She then proceeded to raise the alarm about the increasing numbers of Black women dying in America during childbirth.
“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women in the United States are over three times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes,” she wrote.
“But this is not just a challenge in the United States. Around the world, thousands of women struggle to give birth in the poorest countries. When they have complications like mine, there are often no drugs, health facilities, or doctors to save them. If they don’t want to give birth at home, they have to travel great distances at the height of pregnancy. Before they even bring a new life into this world, the cards are already stacked against them.”
