Connor Reed, the 25-year-old British man who initial media reports said cured himself with a "hot toddy," now says it took him some 24 days to recover from the virus and it was the worst illness he's ever had.
His cat also fell under the weather and died.
First British victim, 25, describes Coronavirus in VIVID detail—from the very FIRST symptom to the LAST. He contracted it in LATE NOVEMBER in Wuhan. Not a pleasant three weeks. Actually quite miserable. https://t.co/1DcX66mF7R
Day 1 — Monday November 25: I have a cold. I’m sneezing and my eyes are a bit bleary. It isn’t bad enough to keep me off work. I arrived in this country to teach English as a foreign language — but now I’m a manager at a school in Wuhan, the city in central China where I have lived for the past seven months.
I speak Mandarin well, and the job is interesting. My cold shouldn’t be very contagious, so I have no qualms about going to work. And I live alone, so I’m not likely to give it to anyone. There hasn’t been anything in the news here about viruses. I have no cause for concern. It’s just a sniffle.
[...]
Day 7: I spoke too soon. I feel dreadful. This is no longer just a cold. I ache all over, my head is thumping, my eyes are burning, my throat is constricted. The cold has travelled down to my chest and I have a hacking cough.
This is flu, and it’s going to take more than a mug of hot honey, with or without the magic whisky ingredient, to make me feel better.
[...]
Day 8: I won’t be in work today. I’ve warned them I’ll probably be off all week. Even my bones are aching. It’s hard to imagine I’m going to get over this soon.
Even getting out of bed hurts. I am propped up on pillows, watching TV and trying not to cough too much because it is painful.
Day 9: Even the kitten hanging around my apartment seems to be feeling under the weather. It isn’t its usual lively self, and when I put down food it doesn’t want to eat. I don’t blame it – I’ve lost my appetite too.
Day 10: I’m still running a temperature. I’ve finished the quarter-bottle of whisky, and I don’t feel well enough to go out and get any more. It doesn’t matter: I don’t think hot toddies were making much difference.
Day 11: Suddenly, I’m feeling better, physically at least. The flu has lifted. But the poor kitten has died. I don’t know whether it had what I’ve got, or whether cats can even get human flu. I feel miserable.
Day 12: I’ve had a relapse. Just as I thought the flu was getting better, it has come back with a vengeance. My breathing is laboured. Just getting up and going to the bathroom leaves me panting and exhausted. I’m sweating, burning up, dizzy and shivering. The television is on but I can’t make sense of it. This is a nightmare.
By the afternoon, I feel like I am suffocating. I have never been this ill in my life. I can’t take more than sips of air and, when I breathe out, my lungs sound like a paper bag being crumpled up. This isn’t right. I need to see a doctor. But if I call the emergency services, I’ll have to pay for the ambulance call-out myself. That’s going to cost a fortune. I’m ill, but I don’t think I’m dying — am I?
Surely I can survive a taxi journey. I decide to go to Zhongnan University Hospital because there are plenty of foreign doctors there, studying. It isn’t rational but, in my feverish state, I want to see a British doctor. My Mandarin is pretty good, so I have no language problem when I call the taxi. It’s a 20-minute ride. As soon as I get there, a doctor diagnoses pneumonia. So that’s why my lungs are making that noise. I am sent for a battery of tests lasting six hours.
He eschewed the antibiotics the doctors gave him as initial reports said and eventually got better on day 24. The hospital told him on day 52 that he had the Wuhan coronavirus.
Chinese scientists say they are two main strains of the coronavirus, one of which is much worse than the other.
Researchers in China have found that two different types of the new coronavirus could be causing infections worldwide.
In a preliminary study published Tuesday, scientists at Peking University’s School of Life Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai found that a more aggressive type of the new coronavirus had accounted for roughly 70% of analyzed strains, while 30% had been linked to a less aggressive type.
The more aggressive type of virus was found to be prevalent in the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan — the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected late last year.
But the frequency of this type of virus has since decreased from early January.
The researchers said their results indicate the development of new variations of the spike in COVID-19 cases was “likely caused by mutations and natural selection besides recombination.”
I suspect Reed caught the worse strain (both strains have spread around the world).
... WHO gave IMO a misleading 3.4% global MR for COVID-19. But China's # must be incomplete (missing mild, untested cases). Morale: the more you test, the more you find, the more your numbers are a reflection of reality. So, that makes me happy (in a bizarre way)
Connor Reed, the 25-year-old British man who initial media reports said cured himself with a "hot toddy," now says it took him some 24 days to recover from the virus and it was the worst illness he's ever had. 