I did eventually get a response from a customer service agent who said that my old provider hadn't received my direction to release my phone number to Public. I had initially replied to Virgin's text message allowing the transfer, but because my e-sim had already switched to Public, my text didn't go through. I had to re-insert my sim card, enable Virgin network, call Virgin to have them manually release my number. I think this all could have been avoided if I had been instructed at the beginning to allow 2 sim cards to be active at the same time, and then remove the Virgin sim once the number had transferred. I also wish there had been someone I could call at Public from another number to actually talk to a person to troubleshoot these issues. The online messaging system was very delayed.
