Salinas Mayor Kimbley Craig tests positive for Covid-19.

It started the night of Jan. 1 with an unrelenting headache and morphed into joint pain so bad that sleep was out of the question.

"It felt like I had been hit with a baseball bat, in my lower back. It hurt to lie down and I was thinking, 'Oh my God, am I really that out of shape from just laying around?'" Salinas Mayor Kimbley Craig says. "That's when I started Googling Covid-19 symptoms."

The joint pain, the headache and the early-morning arrival on Saturday of stomach trouble were all signs. After a rapid results test on Jan. 4 and a telemedicine appointment, Craig is now in self-isolation after testing positive for Covid-19. 

She first told KSBW reporter Felix Cortez the news, she says, because she had given Cortez an in-person interview just hours before the onset of her symptoms and wanted to inform him of his possible exposure to the virus.

Someone with knowledge of her diagnosis also apparently called KION.

"This is the part that's uncomfortable and weird for me," she says. "I have the role of mayor and Salinas has a majority of the cases, so I know this is newsworthy. But it's also my health and it's frustrating that I have to disclose this. But I just have to keep my chin up and realize it's a story."

Because of the holiday last week, there were few people at City Hall during times when Craig was there and it's unclear if anyone else on staff needs to self-isolate or seek testing.

"I'm definitely under the weather, but with weird symptoms—a low-grade fever, chills and I'm super-sore, like I got beat up in roller derby," she says. "My back hurts, my hips and knees. I don't feel like I have the flu."

Craig's diagnosis comes the day before the first City Council meeting of the year, Jan. 5, at which time the council is expected to name Steve Carrigan, former city manager of Merced, as Salinas' new city manager. Meetings have been held virtually since the start of the pandemic and shelter-in-place orders.