Coronavirus Diaries

Here’s what I’ve been hoping / dreading to find: a survivor’s account of what the illness is like. A friend on Twitter just shared. If you don’t use Twitter, my apologies. It’s incredibly long and due to Twitter’s formatting, impossible to c&p.

https://twitter.com/shirazmaher/status/1243554346396246018?s=21

1 Reply

@Lash,

There are (at least here in Europe) quite a few stories online, including tv-reports with the patients (mostly anonymised)
Our regional public tv station reported about about Berlin's "Patient 0" a couple of days ago,

Four weeks ago, on 2 March, Berlin's first Corona case became known. The 22-year-old "Patient Zero" [he insists that he is not the first person who got the virus in Berlin but the first known with a positive test] is still being treated at the Charité one month later.
He appeals to take the threat of the virus serious (there has been a video report about it on some regional German tv-stations,).

At the beginning of March, the student had collapsed in his flat share room, with severe flu symptoms. He initially blamed it on complications following a travel vaccination, he says in a video interview on his mobile phone. "I had a cold all the time two weeks before," he says. He went to the open-plan office every day as a trainee during these two weeks, ten colleagues sat near him - at least one was also infected with the corona virus. (The colleagues emphasized in an interview that no one in the company reproached him for this.)

"I have, of course, assumed all along: It's just a cold, I'm an intern, I keep going to work. I can't really choose that, I don't want to 'get in line' either", he describes his thoughts at the time to "CTRL_F". He had not been in a corona risk area - that's why he didn't associate the symptoms with the virus. His two flatmates found him lying on the floor of his room, closed, and called the ambulance. The ambulance brought him to the emergency room of the Virchow Clinic in Wedding.

The young man was also in the hospital for a long time really bad, says the young patient: weakness, fever, cough, sore throat. In the meantime he feels better. But his viral load is still high. That is why no one is allowed to visit him. "There are several airlocks: The airlock opens, the airlock closes, then they change their clothes and come in their protective suits. Meanwhile, nobody is allowed to open the other door," he says. Even the outside area behind the ward for the daily ten-minute exits is completely closed off so that no one can come into contact with the infected. "They're doing a really great job here," says the patient.

It's not known when the young man will come out. He will remain isolated for security reasons. A patient is only cured when he is completely symptom-free and has tested negative for the virus several times. This is explained by the virologist Regina Heilbronn of the Charité: "What is even more important: To detect whether the patient has produced antibodies against the virus. This is a sign that he has really recovered."

The two roommates have also been infected with the virus, but they have not fared as badly as the 22-year-old. They're in quarantine at home. They haven't been allowed to leave their apartment for weeks. Neither to go shopping nor for a walk. The groceries are currently being delivered to their doorstep and laid outside. When everyone is away, they'll get it.

They give the interview at the apartment window. "We didn't actually have any typical symptoms, like fever, coughing and so on. We had a bit of headache and aching limbs," says one of them. However, after the positive test result of her roommate, they assumed that they had been infected. They also warned against underestimating the virus - precisely because many infected people showed few or mild symptoms.

Text translated reports (in German) by my state's West German Broadcasting (WDR) and Berlin state's Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting (rbb)

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

This is incredibly helpful, Walter, thank you!

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The kids and I are trying to come up with a game that we can play with the extended family online.

Half the family will cheat if we do Trivial Pursuit.

Will Apples to Apples work?

Has anybody tried this? We have about nine people.

1 Reply

@Lash,

Quote:

Half the family will cheat if we do Trivial Pursuit.

You just need to get the other half of the family to cheat too. Then it will be fair.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Not a lot of fun though. Everybody’s googling answers. I’d get bored.

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@Lash,

I think it was in the TV show "the Magicians"... there was a game with really simple rules. The object was to cheat (and the best cheater won). It did seem like a lot of fun.

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I'm sitting at my desk and my phone across the room blares a loud emergency warning. That is so unnerving.

The governor has just closed all non-essential businesses.

While I'm typing this, my local paper pings me that Trump says we need to prepare for a very painful 2 weeks, citing anticipated death numbers.

It's weird to stop, shake your head, and think about what you're living through.

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My employer (a fairly large international corporation) announced they are cutting labor costs across the board by 20%. All of the executives are taking a 20% pay cut. They cut my pay by 20% (and told me that I can work 1 less day a week, but that isn't actually likely to happen).

I suppose I am grateful, the alternative is worse.

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@maxdancona,

At least the guys pulling in the big bucks are talking a cut. Sounds reasonable. Glad you still have a job.

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Bloody hell it was a bad day for America.
https://ncov2019.live/

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

the alternative is worse

yup... i got laid off today.

nineteen years, see ya later...

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@Region Philbis,

Region Philbis wrote:

Quote:
the alternative is worse
yup... i got laid off today.

nineteen years, see ya later...

I am so sorry.

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@Region Philbis,

I hope the beefed up unemployment will float you nicely, and I hope your business can hold on through this mess.

Fingers crossed and pumping my fist in the air for your business. (three times with menacing facial expression)

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I called and made a pretty damn good logical argument to my child to let me come get her for the duration.

I'd called son first and he---notably--agreed that he'd do it if he were the dad.

Fortified with this and other quite good arguments, I really tried for 20 minutes.

She said no.

I have to make peace with it.

She's mad at me.

CT deaths up 91%. She did agree to become unemployed and apply for unemployment. So, that's something. Working in a grocery store a stone's throw from ground zero ---I just couldn't bear.

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@Region Philbis,

Sorry to hear about that.

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thanx guys...

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@Region Philbis,

Thank you from me, too.

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@Region Philbis,

Wow.

Like Lash said, hopefully the unemployment thing that Congress just passed will see you through the coming period of quarantine.

And once the quarantine is lifted, maybe your former employer will be looking to rehire all their former employees.

For now concentrate on staying alive though.

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Bless all of us in our different situations. I'll mentally call all of your names as I do my family's in my meditations for the foreseeable future.

Wishing everyone peace and safety. <3

(I will try not to giggle when I say "Region Philbis" because Regis Philbin makes me automatically laugh.)

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