Just wanted to jot down the course of events/symptoms in case this helps someone:
For a few days, I had the chills and a really bad ache in the lower back area. My first thought was “Do I have COVID?” And from what I’ve read, one of the symptoms is loss of smell/taste. But I was able to smell/taste, and there was no cough etc., so I thought this was some other kind of infection. I took a test just in case — and it turned out positive.
PS: Am feeling better now. I think the worst happened BEFORE I took the test, which is what I hear from a lot of people.
PPS: If others would like to share details of their events/symptoms, would be happy to add to this post.
Madan:
My experience was similar in some ways to yours. I am also documenting the symptoms below for reference and would also encourage others to do so to help each other.
1) I never ran a fever and never had cough
2) I would get chills without it being the malaria/typhoid or even viral fever type of chills
3) I had a sore throat that refused to get ok after a week of antibiotics. That was the red flag. As a singer with good breathing habits, I generally don’t tend to have a sore throat and when I do, it gets cured quickly without much medication
4) I never had any loss of taste or smell
5) I did feel a strong sense of weakness and fatigue. I would struggle to get out of bed and to attend to work in the last couple or so days before I took the test. I had been attributing that to the stress I have taken on in the workplace
Also, I tested because the fact that three of my colleagues had tested positive within a week made me worried. Less so for myself but because my parents are both aged over 60 and I didn’t want to end up transmitting the disease to them. I tested positive and spent 10 days in the covid center. A further one week of home quarantine was imposed. I am ok now and went to office yesterday.
Siva: Here is the sequence of events in my case.
- It started with me getting conscious of an elevated heartrate that I ignored for a day. And the temperature next day was 102C with a hear rate of 115-120 constantly.
- As per doctor advice, waited for 2 days (to avoid false negative) and then took the COVID test that came positive.
- By then I was admitted to hospital (have comorbidities inc. COPD) and was running 102 fever for then next 5-6 days.
- I had lost the sense of smell by then. I still maintain that it is the hospital food that was tasteless and I didn’t lose the sense of taste.
- Saw other patients (that I was sharing room with) suffer more, especially breathing troubles.
- My breathlessness started almost a week after the initial symptoms. And was fortunate (These were the times when getting a hospital bed was challenging) that I was still in hospital at that time and was treated for that.
- Was discharged after 10 days in hospital minus 7kgs lost (yay, weight loss goals!!!).
- Fatigue, erratic heartrate (53-115 per min) for the next few weeks.
- Almost normal now but still get tired fast with less resistance to cold (and it is cold in Chennai nowadays).
- Proteins, soups definitely helping in the post COVID recovery.
Pranesh:
1) Was chatting with family and friends all day and felt ok, but felt feverish (101), enough body pain to prevent me from sleeping, and starting signs of a sore throat. Appetite was shot. All of these symptoms seemed to come on in an instant.
2) I took a test (kudos to the infra in chennai, someone collected the test in 2 hours at home and the result was available before end of the day) and tested positive
3) started a dose of medicines (Dolo, antiviral, corticosteroids, anti-parasitic, and vitamin supplement) that took down the fever and body pain pretty much instantly.
4) A few days in I completely lost my sense of taste and smell. Interestingly this coincided with my appetite coming back; so eating a lot of food that I cannot smell or taste.
5) Developed a late bout of cough and phlegm that we just dealt with steam inhalation.
Priya Arun: I’d like to add my experience:
- Developed fever (102) and a severe leg ache.
- Took a test a day after my husband tested positive.
- Fever lasted just for one and a half-day. Loss of taste happened between Day 5 and Day 12.
- A huge challenge was reverse-quarantining my 12-y.o. who had to be shut in her room all by herself for 14 days (she, fortunately, tested negative)
- The doctors allowed me to cook for her. I ensured that I served very carefully.
- Everything was fine and smooth. My problems kicked in only after the 14-day isolation ended. Day 16, I woke up with diarrhoea, vomiting, headache, double-vision, disorientation and a vertigo-like feeling. Was rushed to the Emergency and discharged by the evening.
- Took me a good 15 days to recover from the weakness, giddiness and headache.
- Completely lost taste and smell at that time and it is not yet back. (2 months now)
- The vertigo-like feeling is very slowly getting better.
- My doctor’s observation: The virus reacts differently in different people. In my case, it had affected my nervous system 14 days after I tested positive. Some people get allergic to wheat for a few days after covid.
- Gratitude is a big healer when you notice how kind this Corona has been to you and spared you from anything worse.
Satya: Mine started like this. BR, I don’t know how to send it to you, but if you wish, you can add this too.
A relative passes away and I go to the final rites with all precautions. Then I reach home and everything is fine. Suddenly I get fever, neck sprain, knee pains, irregular breathing and snoring. Eyes would burn and head would go dizzy. I went for a test and got positive. I was in the Covid center, recovering very well. The staff was very attentive, but the experience was very scary.
After testing negative, I lost so much strength and could barely walk (my right knee was paining so much). Back at home, I was in a 14-day quarantine again. In these 14 days, everyday, I would close my eyes and sit in a corner observing my breath. Then I would note my heartrate. Both started improving. In order to keep myself sane, I started writing/thinking of something surreal around us.
It did help because, with surreality, your mind can go anywhere and hence you can divert your thoughts from self-pity and wallowing. Now here I am, testing negative again yesterday, and yet feeling weak and down. And yes, I developed allergy to wheat too. I think I have a long journey to complete.
gnanaozhi:
I was an earlier victim, caught it in Aug (people are convinced it was the gym, which had just opened up after the lockdown but I don’t agree… But whatever).
Saturday, was at the gym actually when I felt this acute sense of fatigue. Usually am a iron pumping nut and no matter what I always get a natural high when I lift but this particular day, I could barely even curl a 5kg dumbbell and that was a serious concern.
Went home by around 11 AM, hot shower and instantly severe chills. Crashed after a small lunch.
Fever would spike in the evenings, the fatigue was insane though. I tried to change the water in my tank (it is in my room and I was in self quarantine, luckily the wife and kiddo were at her mom’s), usually never break a sweat but this was enough to break me.
Figured it was the dreaded C. Called my family doc, he told me to wait 2 days and then get it checked but stay in strict quarantine.
Tuesday got it checked, and positive.
Zero sense of smell and taste on Wed, fatigue continued to ravage me, fever was gone though.
Never lost my sense of appetite but it was like eating paper.
A week of this and the fatigue started to lift.
Though I was in very strict self quarantine (as I had by Rama’s grace zero comorbidities, I was given a self quarantine certificate), my blood tests were normal, heart rate was normal, it somehow spread to mom and dad.
Mom had the same symptoms I did, dad was 100% normal. Like literally zero and I mean zero symptoms. I came out of quarantine but mom and dad had theirs so now the tables turned and I was the chef, caretaker etc.
Then on the 12th day dad was diagnosed, he got a massive stroke and passed just like that.
Another covid fatality. Though am to this day convinced it had nothing to do with Covid. Both his parents, his elder sister and Younger brother all passed in the exact same, painless, sudden manner. There is also the matter of what used to be a family joke, albeit dark humour, but is now scarily real. Not one person in his family, over 3 generations has crossed 72.
He was 71.
We are all healthy now though, sadly no weight loss from my side, I have about 4 kgs left on my annual weight loss goal target and am only now getting to it.
Naren:
The following might sound scary to some people but these r the facts and experiences of people from around the world:
Popular Symptoms are fever, nausea, diarrhoea, pain in different parts of the body. Some of the other less common symptoms r impaired vision, incoherent thought processes . . . if the virus reaches the brain. Also, difficulty in breathing, involuntary muscular spasms etc. There’s also the condition called “Long COVID” where people have suffered from the infection for almost a year on and off. In such cases, the symptoms r permanent lung damage in approx. 1 out of 10 people, especially smokers. Apparently the lung becomes hard and heavy as a rock. Other organs have been permanently damaged too in some other cases.
In cases of women specifically, menstrual disruptions and highly irregular blood discharges have been reported. But this condition has been described as a biological and evolutionary protective measure for themselves and the offspring. Singapore reported a case of a COVID infected mother giving birth to a child with antibodies.
An early study noted that people with blood type ‘A’ and ‘AB’ r more vulnerable to the infection, ‘B’ 50/50 and ‘O’, the least among the three. Although there have been increasing evidences to support this study, I don’t know what is the current status.
Apparently men r more likely to b infected than women because they have a lot more of ACE2 [Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2] receptors in their bodies in comparison. The first thing that the virus does is latch on to this ACE2 receptor in the nose which is the key entry point.
Even though it’s very rare, cases of reinfection and even death due to it have been reported. Co-Morbity cases have also been reported aplenty. Since the virus has no species barrier, the infection can happen both ways i.e. humans can infect dogs, cats etc. and the other way around too. So people with pets need to b careful about this.
Even Antartica has reported COVID cases just a couple of days ago. Apparently, there r about 6 tiny islands in Oceania that haven’t reported any case yet. U.K., as we all know has reported a mutated variant of the virus that is even more potent and contagious. Now Nigeria has also reported yet another possible new mutated variant. Studies r going on to know about the potency of that strain.
As I mentioned before, HCQ, Azi, Remdesivir have been widely discredited. No Ayurvedic or Herbal concoctions have been proven to have any positive effect. In fact there have been cases of severe blood thinning, vomit and even a few deaths due to ill-advised alternative concoctions. Regeneron has shown some positive effect in some cases [Trump]. The politics behind Regeneron is another thing . . . Trump is pro-life but one of the key components of Regeneron is embryonic stem cells.
This is a highly mutative and intelligent virus and hence the symptoms, conditions etc. all vary at anytime for anyone. All that have been mentioned above is strictly for the purpose of education and precautions and is in no way meant to offend or scare anyone whatsoever. All disputes are more than welcome as that wud b more education.
Srinivas R
December 22, 2020
Wish you a speedy recovery BR!!! take care.
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Siva NS
December 22, 2020
Were you able to roughly guess when/where you might have got infected? Really hope it wasn’t in one of your visits to a movie theatre.
Darn this disease. You really shouldn’t get this. Wear a mask, stay home, stay safe.
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Madan
December 22, 2020
Sorry to hear, BR. Take care. Hope you are self isolating or have been admitted into a covid center/hospital.
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Guru
December 22, 2020
Take care BR ! Hope it turns negative soon.
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Voldemort
December 22, 2020
Damn! Take care BR saab. Wishing you a speedy recovery.
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Rahini David
December 22, 2020
Take care and thanks for sharing.
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Rambo
December 22, 2020
Trust BR to review Covid! One star. Sounds like an ordeal and great idea to document the suffering and spread the word (not the virus) to ensure people continue to take it seriously. Glad to hear you are on the mend and wish you a rapid return to full health.
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Kay
December 22, 2020
Wish you a speedy recovery, BR!
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Madan
December 22, 2020
Siva: Sorry to hear you got covid. And you seem to have had a rough experience with it too. Damn. Take care.
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Jayram
December 22, 2020
Please take care, BR! Hope you recover quickly!
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Aman Basha
December 22, 2020
Get well soon, big guy
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Venkat
December 22, 2020
Take care sir, wishing you speedy recovery.
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Satya
December 22, 2020
Wishing you a speedy recovery BR.
Only once advice as someone who recovered from this – keep a track of your breath and heartrate. And think/write something surreal in isolation – it does help.
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madhusudhan194
December 22, 2020
Wish you a speedy recovery sir.
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Karthik Ganesan
December 22, 2020
Hope you get to feeling better soon. Take care.
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lakshmi
December 22, 2020
Take care, BR.
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Karthik
December 22, 2020
Take care, BR, and wish you a full speedy recovery.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, BR, Madan, Siva…
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Naren
December 22, 2020
Sorry to read that BR. Please take care. Also, u shud stay away from HCQ, Azithromycin and Remdesivir. None of them is effective and has other possible side-effects. R u signing up for a trial in Astra/Sputnik/BioNTech?!
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v.vijaysree
December 22, 2020
aiyyo!! Take care…
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Skram
December 22, 2020
Take care BR! You will recover soon 🙂
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rmahalik
December 22, 2020
Take care, BR. Get well soon.
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Yajiv
December 22, 2020
Yikes! Hope you feel better soon BR. I’m glad your COVID experience hasn’t been too severe. Mine was unfortunately somewhere between Siva’s and Madan’s. You’ll get through this!
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Madan
December 22, 2020
Yajiv: Damn. So one more of the BR blog regulars who got covid. Wonder who else did. Seems a lot of us have covid tales to tell.
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Enna koduka sir pera
December 22, 2020
Take care BR and wish you a speedy recovery!
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Alex John
December 22, 2020
Get well soon BR!
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Santa
December 22, 2020
Take care, BR, and hope you are back in full health soon!
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Anuja Chandramouli
December 22, 2020
Wishing you a speedy recovery BR.
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therag
December 23, 2020
Get well soon BR.
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TamilThanos
December 23, 2020
Take care Baddy. And I think it is ok to continue doing remote interviews. I am sure no one here would have any qualms about it.
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Apu
December 23, 2020
Sorry to hear about it BR, Madan and Shiva and happy to hear that you are all recovering. Take care!
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ini
December 23, 2020
Take care BR 🙂 For some morbid reason, I was smiling at this as I also turned positive this week. It’s like a celebrity count you know – which celebrity has the same birthday, which celebrity turned positive the same week as you. Macron, now you.
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Saipriya
December 23, 2020
Wish you a speedy recovery, BR! Take care and stay safe.
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Siva
December 23, 2020
BR:
” For a few days, I had the chills and a really bad ache in the lower back area. ”
1) I feel the climate to be very cold too, especially in the evenings/nights of the past week or so. I am not sure if I should categorize it as chills, though. But then, I am always averse to even slightly colder climates. In fact, I don’t preferred air conditioned rooms. Because I cannot stand the cold temperature.
2) Also, I have been having a stiff lower back for the past 4 days or so. I had self diagnosed(!?) it as a sprain. No severe pain though.
3) No headache.
4) No fever, sore throat, cold, or cough whatsoever.
Do these warrant a test?
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thebeadhandbag
December 23, 2020
Wish you a complete and speedy recovery BR !
Madan and Siva, glad you are fine… Take care !
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Archana
December 23, 2020
Take care and hope you feel better soon!
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Heisenberg
December 23, 2020
Wish you a speedy recovery.
Hope Madan and Siva are doing better now!
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brangan
December 23, 2020
Thanks all.
Have added Pranesh’s experience up there.
ini: Of ALL the things to share with a “celebrity” 😀
Siva: I would not presume to know whether you need a test or not, as the symptoms seem to vary from person to person. But do pay attention to the lower back ache. I had it for three days and I could not sleep comfortably, kept tossing and turning. I thought it was a spasm kind of thing, but then I got to know that this is a symptom, too…
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Enigma
December 23, 2020
Wishing you a speedy recovery BR.
Thanks everyone for sharing the details.
I just took a COVID test. I don’t have any symptoms but as a colleague tested positive and there has been a minor outbreak in Sydney and I visited a hotspot was required to get tested. Hoping to get the all clear soon.
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kaizokukeshav
December 23, 2020
Wish you are speedy recovery
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abishekspeare
December 23, 2020
Not BR, you peice of shit covid
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Satty
December 23, 2020
Wishing you a speedy recovery baddy sir!!!!
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Vikram s
December 23, 2020
BR, take care. Drink fluids, eat fresh, take your vitamins and other medications prescribed by doctor. And get yourself tested after a week or so ( I hope you opted for rt-pcr test and not the rapid antigen one)
And hope you have informed all your primary contacts…
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Voldemort
December 23, 2020
Damn. So many regulars here seem to have been affected. Take care everyone. Hope you are all doing better now. Siva, please get yourself tested again, one of my neighbours had also got a second bout. It was much less severe, and he recovered in a week’s time.
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Berlin
December 23, 2020
BR: Wish you a speedy recovery! Hope Madan, Pranesh and Siva are doing well too! This post was actually informative because I had no idea lower back pain was a symptom.
With the word that the second, more resistant strain of the virus going around, it looks like 2020 is getting worse by the second. Hope everyone stays safe and healthy!
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Yajiv
December 23, 2020
@Madan:
Yes! I wouldn’t be surprised if others did too. What was the estimate for the bigger Indian cities: that more than half of us already have antibodies (i.e. got the virus at some point) or something like that? How are you doing now though? I hope your energy/stamina levels are back?
@BR: You are also a celebrity! 😉
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Srinivas R
December 23, 2020
Wish everyone who is infected a speedy recovery.
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sagartetali
December 23, 2020
Wish you a swift recovery, BR. This year really does suck. Several in my family are currently hospitalised due to COVID. Maybe a good time to catch up on that book/movie/series you’ve been shelving away for less busy times?
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Priya Arun
December 23, 2020
That’s so sad to hear Brangan saab. Take care and get well soon. Stay away from those cinema halls!
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brangan
December 23, 2020
Added Priya Arun’s experience.
Thanks for sharing Priya. That sounded quite scary.
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Akhilan
December 23, 2020
Oh um just found out. Um wishing you a quick and speedy recovery BR. Best Wishes.
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bart
December 23, 2020
Take care BR & affected readers. All good wishes to lockdown COVID and come out BRavid..
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Kay
December 23, 2020
Wishing good health to everyone who tested positive and others members of the blog too.
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MANK
December 23, 2020
Oh boy. Take care boss. Wishing you a speedy recovery.
And Madan, Pranesh and you all, glad that you made it past safely.
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Lord Labakudoss
December 23, 2020
Take care, BR – Wishing you a speedy recovery!
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Anu Warrier
December 23, 2020
Glad to hear you’re on the mend, BR. Wishing you a speedy and full recovery.
Others – Madan, Siva, Pranesh, Priya – scary to read. Glad you are all doing okay!
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V.K.Dadhich
December 23, 2020
Wish you a good health and hope you recover soon, 🙏🙏
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Vazhipokkan
December 23, 2020
Take care BR. If it were a different time I would have visited with one Horlicks bottle and anju aaru orange
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jvb
December 24, 2020
Hope you get well soon! Any idea how you caught it? Did you catch it inspite of mask, social distancing etc? Any lesson you learnt that you can share that can help others?
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Summar
December 24, 2020
Take care and get well soon!
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Doba
December 24, 2020
So sad to read this. Take care and get well soon, all of you.
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Satya
December 24, 2020
Seems a lot of us have covid tales to tell.
I am sure about that Madan.
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Dora
December 24, 2020
BR sir, I am so sorry you had to go through this and I am so glad you are getting better. Your writing and videos have been one of the few bright spots of this year for me – a complete escape from the misery that was 2020. Thank you for your work, wishing you loads of good health and happiness this new year.
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gnanaozhi
December 24, 2020
Covid is weird, it seems to have differnt symptoms with varying intensity levels.
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krishikari
December 24, 2020
BR ,very sorry to hear this. Hope you and all the rest of the afflicted get well soon! Please keep us posted about lingering effects. I’ve heard it takes a long time to feel quite normal again.
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brangan
December 24, 2020
Added Satya’s and gnanozhi’s experiences.
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brangan
December 24, 2020
Thank you all for sharing. This is all very valuable information. And gnanaozhi, cannot imagine what it have been like grappling with COVID + a parent’s death.
And to think so many people seem to believe better days lie ahead.
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Madan
December 24, 2020
Reading all these experiences is scary, especially to know that people have had to deal with strong fever or other issues AFTER completing their self-isolation and treatment. It’s now 12 days since I got discharged and I am fine. But I guess I have to keep a watch for some more time if these accounts are anything to go by. Or not. This disease is so unpredictable.
gnanozhi: So sorry to hear about your loss. Though I don’t encourage covid-denial, I think it’s better this way for you to deal with it. Because to think you lost a loved one to covid would be utterly painful.
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Cathy Cooper
December 24, 2020
Get well soon BR and other afflicted readers. Wish you all a speedy recovery!
Gnanaozhi – my condolences for your loss, very sorry to read this.
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Yajiv
December 24, 2020
@gnanaozhi:
So sorry for your loss. I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been. Thank you for being brave enough to share it here. Best wishes to your family.
After so many months of seeing death/case statistics, one sometimes feels dissonance/desensitized and forgets that there was a human life lost behind every number. An individual with thoughts, desires, memories and history snuffed out suddenly by this damn virus.
I truly hope these vaccine campaigns work and we see the end of this sooner than later.
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Naren
December 24, 2020
Wow . . . Madan, Pranesh, Siva, gnanozhi etc. sorry to read abour ur infections and loss. Hope u people r doing better by the day.
Please take care everyone.
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brangan
December 25, 2020
Added naren’s comments to the post.
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abishekspeare
December 25, 2020
As scary as it is to know that the new variant is much more infectious, with viruses, the more infectious they are, the less deadly. So even if more people have the possibility of contacting the ‘upgraded version’ , less people will lose their lives. And the vaccines are said to be as effective as they are to the Original Covid.
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abishekspeare
December 25, 2020
Thanks BR for putting up this post, it reminded me once again why this site is much more than just a favorite blog. Thanks everyone for sharing your stories, and please take care
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Naren
December 25, 2020
Abishekspeare – The deadliness of the U.K. variant is still speculative. BioNTech says that the vaccine can b reset to combat the new variant in 6 weeks. But trials, approvals, efficacy and effectiveness r a whole another thing. The mod vaccine is being tested now. mRNA tech enables the direct engineering of the vaccine and the U.K. variant seems to b having just minor changes from the original one. But now there’s a Nigerian variant.
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Voldemort
December 25, 2020
The news says reinfections are very very rare, but I come across quite a few people who say they’ve tested positive again after a bout of recovery. Some of them are probably false positives but are the reinfection numbers being played down?
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Naren
December 25, 2020
Voldemort – Numbers being fudged is very much a possibility. Re-infections r rare comparitively and death by re-infection is even rarer, but it need not always b a case of re-infection. Like I said before, there’s also the possibility of “long covid” where people have been going thru symptoms on and off for prolonged periods of time. The Dutch woman who died of re-infection was 89 years old and was also undergoing chemotherapy that lowers the immune system’s capabilities. That blurs the line between re-infection and co-morbidity.
False positives r also a possibility. Both RAT [Rapid Antigen Test] and RT-PCR [Reverse Transcription – Polymerase Chain Reaction] r equally important for everyone and having tested both ways is the only way to minimise false positives to a great extent. RAT is a Nasopharyngeal swab that can b directly tested and result produced in 30 minutes ideally. RT-PCR is a complex setup but highly accurate and hence takes longer depending on the real world conditions. But neither shud b neglected no matter what.
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MANK
December 25, 2020
Then on the 12th day dad was diagnosed, he got a massive stroke and passed just like that.
My god! Gnanaozhi, my man that was heartbreaking to read. First to suffer the loss of a parent and then to write about it must have been even more painful. my condolences.
Thanks for this post, brangan and you all, this has been very informative and also very touching.
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Rajeev Hari Kumar
December 25, 2020
Take care, BR. Wishing you a speedy recovery.
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Aman Basha
December 25, 2020
For the sake of being a contrarian:
and this:
(Please note, both these characters have some questionable logic and motive)
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Madan
December 25, 2020
The basic flaw in that logic (of comparing covid deaths AFTER lockdowns were imposed) is that there would have been way more deaths without them. This is measurable. Sweden’s herd immunity model has failed with nearly 8300 deaths, amounting to 800 deaths per mn of population (compared to 524 deaths total, yes, for Finland – which works out to 95 per mn). Or, compare the utter failure in US or UK compared to the moderate success of Canada and the more spectacular performance of Aus and NZ. You tell me who has got football stadiums open and packed with people now – NZ or US?
I usually find Umair Haque painful to read but he did write a good piece contrasting the failed Western approach of containment with the Eastern one of elimination.
https://eand.co/the-west-gave-up-on-wiping-out-covid-and-that-was-its-big-mistake-c880a6b026fe
By the way, I don’t necessarily believe brutal lockdowns are the best way to tame covid. Social distancing, masks, thermal screening and contact tracing is the magic formula. It’s what worked in Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Japan. Germany did likewise to handle the first wave with success (though they haven’t responded as well to the second wave, which is inexplicable).
BUT India didn’t have the technology – for all our shouting over the rooftops about our tech strength – to roll out such an apparatus on a nationwide scale to keep things open and still control covid. And the fundamental requirement was to build beds urgently for covid patients. Hence, there was no option but a lockdown. The implementation of the lockdown can and should be debated but it was needed alright. And the reason the economy had to tank wasn’t purely because of the lockdown but because the govt bizarrely followed a supply side approach to relief packages instead of a pure stimulus that Western countries delivered to people cooped up in their homes.
I cannot speak for the nationwide experience but where I live, the covid center was well run and decently equipped. Not amazing but good enough for mild/moderate cases which are the only ones admitted to the ‘center’ (as opposed to hospitals which handle severe cases). And as a result of the hard yards put in in the early month, today the center is NOT brimming with people and the comfortable numbers indicate control over the virus at this point (a bad response to the mutated version of the virus could screw things up and I fear we will). I think with all the limitations that India has, the govt did remember to respond as govt and not take the American laissez faire approach that has led to disaster for them. My complaint with India’s approach was primarily with complacency and lethargy in Feb and March when a decisive shutdown of international travel could have cut cases down to none and we need not have gone through the agony of the lockdown. Again, what Aus and NZ did very successfully and where India failed terribly and tragically. Tragically because India was quick to shut travel from China but inexplicably failed to perceive the risk of travellers from Europe or Africa also transmitting the virus and helping it spread.
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studioraasa
December 25, 2020
Wishing all you Positives a speedy recovery.
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(Original) venkatesh
December 25, 2020
All the best to you all.
Currently living in the Red Zone of London , UK with the faster spreading virus ., the experiences and symptoms are all over the place .
And out of all the various “therapies” and questionable logic being spread around (e.g. @Aman Basha’s brain dead contribution) – the 3 things that seem to have the most efficacy are :
. Wash Hands
. Give Space
. Keep circulation of fresh air
All the best again.
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Satya
December 26, 2020
Gnanaozhi, I knew you lost your parent to Covid-19 in a reader’s write-up thread by Anu IIRC. Reading this makes it more scary now. I hope Rama, whose grace worked for you back then, should give enough strength to cope up.
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Aman Basha
December 26, 2020
Please note, I just put up the above posts simply to behave as a contrarian. However, even with the explanation about why lockdowns are necessary, we forget Pakistan, which in terms of temperature, population and demographics is similar to us, and didn’t impose a lockdown. It doesn’t seem to have made a difference, in fact, Pakistan seems to have handled it better than us. Not just Pak, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have handled it better too. It does seem like the movement of migrants during the lockdown only made things worse.
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Naren
December 26, 2020
Despite all the mess and chaos in this country W.R.T. the pandemic especially in places like Delhi and MH where cases skyrocketed, for the first time since this all began, Dharavi has reported 0 positive cases. The seroprevalance of one portion of the area showed 57% infection and yet they were the ones to achieve herd immunity way back in July before anyone else in the country.
This is where my struggle lies . . . whether the country responded late or early wudn’t have mattered because lockdown was only for a particular section of the country. Religious gatherings still happened, private parties and hence celebrities becoming super spreaders, high profile weddings that hoarded HCWs for their private needs and precautions, political and elctoral gatherings etc. While at the same time, at a different part of the spectrum, we saw candid videos emerge that showed police beating the crap out of people for being on the streets even for essential needs. KA CM
While on the other hand, China hid the fact that the virus pathology is H2H transmission and they knew about this way back around late December. Recent document leaks revealed a early gene sequencing of the virus by China that wud also have helped immensely. Yet it was their draconian measures to lockdown parts of the country that brought things under control very early on and then pictures emerged recently of people gathering in public pools and having a jolly good time.
So, what is really the exact severity of a lockdown that wud’ve helped, while at the same time wud’ve been acceptable to everyone?!
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tonks
December 26, 2020
I’ve had close encounters with patients with fever who later turned out to be Covid, as a part of my profession. I’ve taken my turn at Covid duty, and been near sick ICU patients with Covid. I’ve escaped so far (fingers crossed). I am more careful than most, but the lucky thing is that it is nearly certain that if you wear a well fitting mask, with a face shield, and limit interaction to less than 15 minutes then this virus will not spread.
So the spread risk for me is not from patients, or my colleagues, where I take all precautions, but from my own family (my husband goes to work, and we have household help coming in daily).
The most careful person I know is a physician colleague, whose wife and daughter are doctors too. They have, for months, lived in isolation three upstairs separate bedrooms, because they each work in one of the three medical colleges in my district and their aged father lives downstairs. Food is delivered up in buckets tied to ropes, and the plates down, in soap water. They have evaded the disease till now.
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tonks
December 26, 2020
We used to have a prayer in my school, which I often remind myself of, that went like this :
“Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
Count your many blessings, see what Lord hath done,
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.”
Not sure I believe in a “Lord”, but there have been a lot of blessings, a lot of silver linings, in these extremely dark times (along with many instances of anxiety, before I became acclimatized to this new normal) for me. Good things to come out of Corona for me (partly because I look after children, and childhood infectious diseases have reduced due to the general Covid precautions, so I have a little more free time) :
1) Started swimming in our natural pond for pleasure, never before have I ventured so much into the deep end
2) Zoom fitness : never been fitter in my entire life, partly motivated by the fact that Covid is merciless in the unfit. Obesity is a co morbidity.
3) Time for gardening and yard work : manual mowing for the first time in my life
4) Tried out the pleasures of Karaoke
5) Less social invitations, so less small talk which is a huge plus personally, for me
6) Tried to stay away from social media, too
7) Could spend long months with both our young adult sons, who were studying from home. This would never have happened otherwise.
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tonks
December 26, 2020
Then on the 12th day dad was diagnosed, he got a massive stroke and passed just like that. Another covid fatality. Though am to this day convinced it had nothing to do with Covid. Both his parents, his elder sister and Younger brother all passed in the exact same, painless, sudden manner. There is also the matter of what used to be a family joke, albeit dark humour, but is now scarily real. Not one person in his family, over 3 generations has crossed 72. He was 71
Cannot imagine how terrible this must have been.
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Madan
December 26, 2020
Aman: Pak, Bangladesh and SL all tested at a much, much lower rate than India.
Covid worldometer is your friend here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
India has tested 120k people per million of population. As against 19k for Bangladesh, 29k for Pak and 55k for SL. And of these, SL further has a lower population density than India overall and even its biggest city, Colombo, is about as populated as Chennai was maybe 10 years back. There’s no comparison. You can ‘seem’ to do well if you don’t test. The reason a state like MP seems to have done better than MH, Karnataka or TN is simply low testing. AND the fact that their biggest city is Indore which isn’t even a third of Chennai or Bangalore, forget Mumbai.
https://science.thewire.in/covid19
MP has tested 30k people per million against 70k for MH, 110k for Karnataka or 123k for TN.
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Arjun
December 27, 2020
Thanks for sharing these experiences, everyone. And wish everyone a smooth recovery.
Btw, it would be helpful if those who had/have it could share the city where they live and the month, so we can get an idea whether the official numbers showing a precipitous fall in cases and deaths is reliable or not.
My sense is large parts of north India (except NCR) have basically remained unscathed. And it does seem like masks and social distancing are basically non-existent outside the metros in most parts of the country. My opinion is that it is population age distributions, seasonality and good old luck that correlates with “success” rather than any NPIs…also maybe general immune levels of the population.
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Aman Basha
December 27, 2020
@Madan: I’m not taking the number of cases, but the number of deaths per capita. Even if testing was low, we’d have enough reports of overfilled hospitals, wouldn’t we? Inadvertently, it seems to confirm Trump’s logic of ‘we’re doing too much testing’. Perhaps for the areas which have low testing and(like Pak) didn’t impose any lockdown, the mortality rate growth would be a better indicator. Of course, other factors like the lack of international travel, low population density and younger populations (than India) would have helped.
For other states and to get an accurate picture of what might happen, I think the best model is the IHME:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/india?view=daily-deaths&tab=trend
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Naren
December 27, 2020
Like I mentioned before, Rapid Antigen Tests can produce results in approx. 30 minutes but there’s a good chance of false results. Only this test has been done in large numbers throughout India. The ratio of RAT to RT-PCR tests have to b factored into this too. The following article’s sources has been questioned by some but it does paint the overall picture.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/why-official-covid-19-numbers-are-misleading-2329668
Numbers and data from most of the countries r not reliable either for health care or for economic purposes. For example, Gita Gopinath claims that she doesn’t so much as gets information on why there have been remarkably low death rates in India despite the number of infections as compared to a country like America or parts of Europe.
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Kid
December 27, 2020
Hope you are recovering well BR. Good to know that Madan and others have recovered.
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KayKay
December 27, 2020
Aaaaah! The one post I didn’t want nor wanted to read. Wishing you a speedy recovery B. Ditto to the others who tested positive. May your recovery match the swiftness for which I wish this shitty year comes to an end.
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Madan
December 27, 2020
Aman: Mortality goes hand in hand with testing. If you do not test, you cannot diagnose a person as a covid patient. Maybe if you did CT scan but even in that case, the person should be classified as a covid case. If that is not done, their death will be reported as due to one or other of the comorbidities. Either cardiac arrest if that happens or, most likely, pneumonia. If the patient is old, they may not bother to report a specific cause. A colleague of mine lost his father in law to covid. He was 70 plus or so. It’s possible such cases don’t even get classified as covid and therefore the death also would not be counted as a covid death.
Another thing. It’s not strictly true that Pak had no lockdown. They did have one, just one that was imposed by the army and not by the PM.
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Anand Raghavan
December 28, 2020
Take care BR, wish you a speedy recovery.
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brangan
December 29, 2020
Madan: My 14-day quarantine gets done next week. Should I get myself tested again before I step out of solitary confinement?
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Madan
December 29, 2020
BR: The guidelines don’t advise it. You may get yourself tested again if say you have to attend an office where they want a test. I had to get a repeat test because my org, the same org which did no sanitisation after positive cases, insisted on it. I got negative on both RT PCR and Antigen. If you’re going to test at all, wait 10 days after your quarantine. Because what you don’t want is an unnecessary false positive.
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Aravindan R
December 29, 2020
Wishing BR and fellow readers a speedy recovery. Take care!
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Archana
December 29, 2020
Wish you a speedy recovery BR. Solitary confinement must suck, how are you keeping yourself busy?
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Prasad
December 30, 2020
Wish you a speedy recovery BR.
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Prasad
December 30, 2020
Another point is many of them who have gone through this phase mention they followed all the protocols like washing hands , distancing , masks but still some get and many don’t . Is it just dependent on ones immunity alone or is there any other scientific reason. Request you to please share your views . Thanks
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AdhithyaKR
December 31, 2020
Hope you’re feeling better now sir.
I contracted COVID in early September and though I had only mild symptoms, it was a bit worrying because my parents contracted it as well. Thankfully, it got better with rest. It was also a good time to catch up with movies on my watch list. 🙂 The nature of the disease is quite puzzling though, considering the wide range of experiences people have gone through.
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Aman Basha
December 31, 2020
A very well summed up segment on the new strain which has already entered India.
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Heisenberg
January 27, 2021
Glad to share here that I got vaccinated today. Feels surreal that I received mRNA vaccine (Pfizer) which a year back seemed like science fiction. Feeling fine so far.
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