Fever, muscle pain, and persistent dry cough. By now, we have all heard the main symptoms of covid-19 over and over again. But even so, it’s hard to get an idea of how it really feels to have it: Is it as terrible as some paint it? How long does it last?
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If the pandemic continues its current course, chances are high that many of us will experience them in the coming year, as a study predicts that much of the population will have caught by then.
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However, the data indicates that the symptoms and their severity vary markedly from person to person. The spectrum is broad. Too wide. There may be other symptoms such as nausea, shortness of breath, diarrhea, and even loss of smell or taste. The progression is not the same either.
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Studies conducted in China indicate that approximately 80% of people will experience mild or moderate illness, while 15% will do it in a more severe way and 5% will require intensive care.
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There will also be those who do not even realize that they are carriers.
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Although it has been said that the elderly or people with pre-existing health conditions have a higher risk of suffering a more severe disease, it is impossible to anticipate the percentages. Healthy and young people have also been hospitalized.
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How, then, can we prepare ourselves mentally for what might knock on our door? The experience of some people who have been infected and have experienced it first hand serves as a good reference on how covid-19 can appear and how its symptoms evolve.
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But there are almost as many descriptions as there are people: some develop it progressively; while others get worse in a matter of hours; There are those who describe it as the worst and others who compare it with a simple flu. Bottom line: impossible to pigeonhole the covid-19 in a manual. You will not be able to know 100% what to expect if you get infected. These testimonials can serve as a reference.
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“I have never felt something like this”
A mild infection usually starts with a fever, although it can take a few days to develop. “You will have some respiratory symptoms, some pain. You will have a dry cough. That is what most individuals have,” Maria Van Kerkhove explains to NPR. , from the Health Emergencies Program of the World Health Organization.
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Kat Powers’ description of the patient is much more graphic: “ It starts with a sore throat, the one you feel when you have been smoking menthol cigarettes and you also have a cold. You will feel very tired and have a slight headache behind your eyes. Nothing from the other world ”, he relates in a Twitter thread where he tells his experience.
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I’m in quarantine for 2 weeks and I have some wisdom for you all. If you go out, if you don’t wash your hands, if you think you’ll just get sick and ride it out, this is what you’re in for: 1/14 #Coronavirus
– Kat Powers (@KatPowers) March 24, 2020
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For her, the discomfort quickly escalated. “You will soon be amazed at how much your eyes can hurt and ice packs they won’t help anything. “
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Chills, muscle aches, thirst and tightness followed “like a 50-pound child stands on your chest.”
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Just when the fever dropped a few days later, the cough started. “It is strong, dry and zero productive. Does not relieve chest pain. Doctors don’t prescribe anything because nothing helps with this virus. “
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All in all, he was “lucky”: he had no severe respiratory distress or pneumonia. He managed to recover at home.
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Amy Driscoll, 48, was suddenly tired at work and had a breakdown. That night her fever rose and she felt pain in her chest.
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“It was difficult for me to inhale and I felt an oppression. I have never felt something like this”, he told the Akron Beacon Journal.
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She went to the hospital the next day and ended up hospitalized for a few days for dehydration due to fever. Seven days after the symptoms started, already at home, extreme fatigue and headache lasted.
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“My head hurt so much I thought it would give me a stroke”
For Paola Cano, a 26-year-old Venezuelan living in Houston, it began on Saturday, March 8, with a severe headache that intensified. Then came the throat that he first attributed to allergies, but on the third day grew stronger. “It was so intense that I felt I was suffocating and I started with a dry cough,” the young woman who does not smoke or has pre-existing health conditions tells Univision News. The following Saturday, seeing that he didn’t smell or taste anything, he went to the emergency room.
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“They did the test, a plaque and since I was breathing well, they sent me to quarantine at home,” he says.
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Thereafter the decline began. “I was getting worse, my joints were swollen, I slept little … at most two hours because the headache prevented me from resting.”
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On Thursday, March 19, he had to return to the emergency room with a swollen face and constant vomiting. “My head hurt so much I thought it would give me a stroke,” he says. On that visit they noted that she had pneumonia in her right lung, but not so severe as to hospitalize her. Her husband was infected.
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Then came the strong bouts of diarrhea and complete dejection. “It is horrible to feel without energy,” he confesses in a Facebook video where he tells his experience to others. Already now, more “recovered” continues to have discomfort that comes and goes. “It is a roller coaster, sometimes I am at the top and I feel good, and sometimes the descent is very steep. My lungs are fine already. ”
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“There was not enough air in my lungs”
Noelle Ruiz, 27, started with a mild fever. The next day he was down, but he had a headache and a cough, as well as chest pain. For her the worst came on the sixth day. “I was sleeping 19 hours a day. I was nauseated. When I stopped in the kitchen I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was exercising. I couldn’t take a deep breath. It was like there wasn’t enough air in my lungs, ”he told USA Today.
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His case corresponds to what an analysis of a hundred patients in China indicates, which concluded that, on average, respiratory distress occurs on the fifth day after symptoms begin.
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He also temporarily lost his appetite and sense of smell.
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It started to improve after two weeks.
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“No strength to hold a plate”
Ross Hamilton was part of a risk group: asthmatic. On his Twitter account he related the chronology, day by day, of how his symptoms evolved until he finally recovered without having to go to the emergency room.
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The first thing he felt was a slight fever and muscle pain. The constant cough came on the second day.
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“I woke up with a very persistent cough, every couple of seconds until night. I started to feel a burning in my chest (…) I feel like my lungs were cut in half and I can only breathe half. I slept sitting at night and I couldn’t last more than 20 seconds without coughing. My head and eyes also hurt, ”he says in his Twitter thread.
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On the third day, he had no strength “even to hold a plate.”
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“My breathing is short and forced.” The cough subsided on the fourth day. “It was almost completely gone, but I can’t stay awake.”
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Within a week everything was overcome.
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In contrast, for the British Daryl Doblados, neither being 29 years old nor playing sports helped him.
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Ten days before going to the emergency department for respiratory distress, he had run a half marathon, but now he felt “as if his lungs were filled with smoke or liquid.”
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“I was having trouble breathing. I had never felt that. If I wasn’t concentrating on breathing, I felt like I was drowning, ”he says in a video posted on his Facebook account to send a message to the world:“ Take it seriously, this virus is not a joke. ”
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“Take it seriously”
A moral similar to the one Amy Brock, 47, wants to convey. “I am the face of this infection. It is brutal and I am a healthy 48-year-old person with no pre-existing health conditions. Take it seriously, ”he says in a Facebook post. She felt perfectly well on the way to work and within a few hours she was lethargic, with fever and shortness of breath.
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“Nothing ever hurt me”
But in addition to cases like the previous ones, there are also others such as that of Jerri Goldman, a 65-year-old passenger from the Diamond Princess, who tested positive and did not experience any discomfort. “I never had a sore throat or a headache or anything,” he stresses to the Washington Post. During her quarantine, she did Pilates exercises via Facetime with her friends.
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The same happened to Mark Jorgensen, 55 and recipient of two kidney transplants, which in theory placed him in the high-risk group for developing severe disease. He tested positive while in quarantine, but never felt anything. “When they told me, I couldn’t believe it. I felt good. “
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For Bill Houser, it was no more than a sore throat and some cough, generally milder than influenza. “The last time I had the flu, I felt really bad. I didn’t feel that bad about this, ”she told the local newspaper Kitsap Sun.
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