David had been talking to his young daughter through the living room window for several weeks. David Harris’ world has shrunk to the size of a living room. Seven weeks ago, he developed symptoms of Covid-19. He says it felt like a bad case of the flu. Then, for the first time, the 42-year-old British freelance architect isolated himself in his Bristol home with his wife and young daughter. He felt better within two weeks, but to Harris’ surprise, the symptoms returned within another two weeks. “It was kind of a mini-saga with the return of symptoms, I really didn’t expect that,” he says. “The second wave was much stronger – the same flu symptoms, but with shortness of breath, which convinced me that I had coronavirus. Then, for two weeks, I seemed to get better,” he says. “And then, on the seventh week, the symptoms came back. I began to experience a third wave. Fortunately, they were not as severe, but they were still significant,” says David Harris.
We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. End of story Podcast advertising Deciding that it was better not to take any risks, David continued to isolate himself. He didn’t leave the living room of his house, changed clothes only when he showered, ate and slept alone. David’s wife brought their 10-month-old daughter, Millie, to the living room window and showed her to her husband so they could “communicate” through the glass.
The disease wore David down. He didn’t understand what was going to happen to him next. “The hardest part is deciding when to seek help. I didn’t want to waste time going to the NHS because it’s obvious there are people worse off than me,” he explains. “But I also didn’t want to be in a situation where you hesitate to get help at the most dangerous moment, and then something bad happens because you didn’t do it in time,” he says. “When the symptoms first came back, when I first started to feel worse, it was quite scary. I didn’t understand if that meant it was all over. It’s pretty scary when you start to feel worse and you thought you were getting better. Felicity, a 49-year-old resident of London, first experienced symptoms of Covid-19 six weeks ago. Like David, however, her illness was severe. “The hardest part was getting through the first ten days of a serious illness, thinking you were getting better, and then being confronted with even worse symptoms,” she says.
Felicity’s symptoms continued for six weeks. “By the fifth week of my illness, my partner had to call an ambulance – my stomach was hurting so much, I was screaming in agony,” she says. “It was very difficult to understand – was it the effects of the virus? Was it the immune system response? Inflammation? I had no stomach problems before the infection, but the fifth week was just terrible,” she says. Felicity was unable to shake the symptoms for a long time, and weeks of illness exhausted her. “I spent a lot of time in bed trying to regain my strength. The whole experience – being sick and trying to get well – was overwhelming from a psychological point of view,” she says. Neither Felicity nor David have been tested for Covid-19, but doctors have told them that it is most likely coronavirus. The couple has also been assured that they cannot infect anyone else.
Philip Gotard, a consultant at the London Tropical Diseases Clinic, emphasizes that the vast majority of infected people recover relatively quickly and completely. “Someone’s cough doesn’t go away for a long time. Some patients experience severe fatigue and exhaustion. This loss of energy can last from three to six weeks,” he says. “This is a great stress, especially for young and healthy people who are not used to it. For them, the slow and uneven recovery from an illness is a shock,” the doctor noted. “But such an effect can also occur in other diseases, when patients recover from an acute form of infection. Their condition gets worse and better, they have good days and bad days,” he says. Professor of Epidemiology at the Royal College London, Tim Spector, says that data collected through the special Covid Symptom Study application indicates that people infected with the coronavirus begin to recover within an average of 12 days. “But we also see a large number of people whose symptoms last much longer, in some cases more than 30 days,” he says. “We are studying new data with artificial intelligence. Soon we will learn to determine which combination of symptoms and risk factors leads to such a duration of symptoms,” he says. Today, both David and Felicity are better. As they hope, forever. But Covid-19 is a virus that appeared only a few months ago. It continues to bring us nothing but unpleasant surprises.