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5 people explain what getting the coronavirus felt like for them and how they recovered
5 people explain what getting the coronavirus felt like for them and how they recovered
Julia NaftulinMar 31, 2020, 03:16 IST
Valerie Herman
Symptoms of the novel coronavirus aren't the same for everyone and severity can vary based on age, pre-existing health conditions, and lifestyle factors.
Here's what symptoms and recovery looked like for a handful of people who had COVID-19.
As new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the the coronavirus, pop up daily, other people around the world are recovering from their own bouts of the illness.
Recovery can mean different things depending on the severity of a person's symptoms, their age, and whether they have any underlying health conditions. For some, recovery could mean all of their symptoms go away permanently, while others could have diminished symptoms for a longer period of time and long-term or permanent lung damage.
This is what is was like for a handful of people who were infected with, and then recovered from, the coronavirus.
Clay Bentley of Rome, Georgia, said his symptoms were so severe he could barely sit up.
Bentley, who is in his late 50s and has rheumatoid arthritis, started to feel feverish after performing with 100 other members of his church's choir, Insider previously reported.
He started to feel sick on March 1, and was hospitalized on March 6 when he had increasing trouble breathing and felt too weak to stand in his own. There was also fluid in his lungs.
"I got to the point I couldn't breathe at all. I had cold chills. I had no energy," Bentley told Insider. "I'd go to stand up to walk up across the room, I couldn't even go from a sitting to a standing position."
On March 17, Bentley said he started to feel better, and doctors confirmed that the fluid in his lungs had diminished.
Bentley was discharged and went home for a two-week quarantine in a room separate from his wife.
Todd Herman, a 44-year-old from New York City, told Business Insider he's had flus that were worse than his case of COVID-19.
The following day, he was able to get tested due to a previously scheduled doctor's appointment and learned he had COVID-19.
Herman said his biggest symptom was shortness of breath and he became out of breath just walking from one side of his apartment to the other. He also had mild fatigue and headaches.
"I haven't necessarily felt this much lung congestion with anything I've ever had before, like a cough or a cold in the past," Herman said.
Still, he said he's experienced worse symptoms with previous colds and flus he's had. Herman acknowledged that he had no pre-existing health conditions, which could have helped lessen his symptoms.
"It definitely gives me a different appreciation for the real challenges that people would have, whether it's COPD or emphysema or any sort of lung condition," he said. "I can see why this would be very deadly for people like that."
Elizabeth Schneider, a resident of Washington state, initially thought she had the flu.
"Three days later [after the party], I felt sick and I basically had all of the symptoms of the flu. I didn't have a cough, I didn't have any respiratory distress, tightness in my chest or shortness of breath. So, I actually thought I had contracted the flu," she told Fox News' Neil Cavuto.
Other people who attended the same party were sharing their own flu-like symptoms on social media, so they all decided to sign up for the Seattle Flu Study and got at-home nasal swab testing kits. They all came back positive for COVID-19. That was 11 days after Schneider first felt sick.
Schneider said her fever has subsided and she no longer feels ill.
Carl Goldman, a passenger aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, was one of the 700 guests who was diagnosed with COVID-19.
"After 48 hours, I would have been back at work if I wasn't contagious," Goldman, 67, told Insider from his room at the University of Nebraska Medical Center's National Quarantine Unit on March 13.
Goldman spent 10 days in a biocontainment unit once he was off the cruise ship. Doctors gave him ibuprofen to manage his fever and pain and Gatorade to keep him hydrated.
"It's a different sickness. Unlike a cold or flu, I did not have any stuffiness in my nose, no sore throat, no headache," he said. "Those are things I usually get with a cold."
After 10 days, Goldman had mild symptoms and was moved to a different facility where he remained as part of a clinical study on the coronavirus.
An unnamed 50-year-old Scottish man said his initial symptoms were a fever and aches and pain in his legs.
He told BBC Scotland that he was diagnosed with COVID-19 10 days after returning from a trip to Italy.
"I felt no symptoms. I was completely fine and went to work on the Wednesday and Thursday," he told BBC Scotland. "Later on the Thursday evening, I started to feel a bit of a flu coming on. I had a mild fever, I felt shivery, but the biggest symptom was aches and pains, particularly in my legs."
He later developed a cough and shortness of breath.
His test came back positive for COVID-19, and he was hospitalized right away.
The man said his symptoms were gone at that point, but he was kept in isolation for a few days until a swab test came back negative and he was released from the hospital.
"The mild flu symptoms quickly dissipated, I had no leg pain, no fever, no cough and no shortness of breath," he said.
