Connor Reed, a 25-year-old expat from Llandudno in North Wales, has worked in a school in Wuhan, China, for almost a year. In November he became the first British man to catch the coronavirus. From coughs and aches to burning up and spending the night in hospital, here’s how he beat the illness that is sweeping the globe.
Day 1 — Monday Nov. 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 2: I have a sore throat. Remembering what my mum used to do when I was a child, I mix myself a mug of honey in hot water. It does the trick.
Day 3: I don’t smoke and I hardly ever drink. But it’s important to me to get over this cold quickly, so that I can stay healthy for work. For medicinal purposes only, I put a splash of whisky in my honey drink. I think it’s called a ‘hot toddy’.
Day 4: I slept like a baby last night. Chinese whisky is evidently a cure for all known ailments. I have another hot toddy in the evening. Advertisement
Day 5: I’m over my cold. It really wasn’t anything.
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.
The symptoms hit me this afternoon like a train and, unless there’s an overnight miracle, I will not be going to work tomorrow. It’s not just that I feel so ill — I really don’t want to give this flu to any of my colleagues.
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.
Day 13: I arrived back at my apartment
late yesterday evening. The doctor prescribed antibiotics for the
pneumonia but I’m reluctant to take them — I’m worried that my body will
become resistant to the drugs and, if I ever get really ill and need
them, they won’t work. I prefer to beat this with traditional remedies
if I can.
It helps, simply knowing that this is pneumonia. I’m only
25 and generally healthy: I tell myself there’s no reason for alarm. I
have some Tiger Balm. It’s like Vick’s vapour rub on steroids. I pour
some into a bowl of hot water and sit with a towel over my head,
inhaling the fumes. I’m going ‘old school’. And I’ve still got the
antibiotics in reserve if I need them.
Day 14: Boil a kettle. Add Tiger Balm. Towel over head. Breathe for an hour. Repeat.
Day 15: All the days are now blurring into one.
Day 16: I phone my mother in Australia. There was no point in calling her before now — she’d only worry and try to jump on a plane. That wouldn’t work: it takes an age to get a visitor’s visa to China. I’m glad to hear her voice, even if I can’t do much more than croak, ‘Mum, I feel so ill.’
Day 17: I am feeling slightly better, but I don’t want to get my hopes up yet. I’ve been here before.
Day 18: My lungs no longer sound like bundles of broken twigs.
Day 19: I am well enough to stagger out of doors to get more Tiger Balm. My nose has cleared enough to smell what my neighbours are cooking, and I think I might have an appetite for the first time in nearly two weeks.
Day 22: I was hoping to be back at work today but no such luck. The pneumonia has gone — but now I ache as if I’ve been run over by a steamroller. My sinuses are agony, and my eardrums feel ready to pop. I know I shouldn’t but I’m massaging my inner ear with cotton buds, trying to take the pain away.
Day 24: Hallelujah! I think I’m better. Who knew flu could be as horrible as that, though?
Day 36: A tip-off from a friend sends me hurrying to the shops. Apparently, the Chinese officials are concerned about a new virus that is taking hold in the city. There are rumours about a curfew or travel restrictions. I know what this will mean — panic buying in the shops. I need to stock up on essentials before everyone else does.
Day 37: The rumours were right. Everyone is being told to stay indoors. From what I’ve heard, the virus is like a nasty dose of flu that can cause pneumonia. Well, that sounds familiar.
Day 52: A
notification from the hospital informs me that I was infected with the
Wuhan coronavirus. I suppose I should be pleased that I can’t catch it
again — I’m immune now.
However, I must still wear my face mask like
everyone else if I leave the apartment, or risk arrest. The Chinese
authorities are being very thorough about trying to contain the virus.
Day 67: The
whole world has now heard about coronavirus. I’ve told a few friends
about it, via Facebook, and somehow the news got out to the media.
My local paper back in Llandudno, North Wales, has been in touch with me. Maybe I caught the coronavirus at the fish market.
It’s
a great place to get food on a budget, a part of the real Wuhan that
ordinary Chinese people use every day, and I regularly do my shopping
there.
Since the outbreak became international news, I’ve seen
hysterical reports (especially in the U.S. media) that exotic meats such
as bat and even koala are on sale at the fish market. I’ve never seen
that. The only slightly weird sight I’ve seen is the whole pig and lamb
carcasses for sale, with their heads on.
Day 72 — Tuesday, February 4:
It seems the newspapers think it’s terrific that I tried to cure myself with hot toddies.
I attempt to explain that I had no idea at the time what was wrong with me — but that isn’t what they want to hear.
The headline in the New York Post says, ‘UK teacher claims he beat coronavirus with hot whisky and honey.’
I wish it had been that easy.
Masks out of stock as prices of sanitiser soar
As
more than 70 countries battle with coronavirus outbreak, pharmacies in
the Uganda have revealed that face masks are out of stock as price of
sanitisers increases.
Many pharmacies that this reporter visited revealed that with the shortage of face masks the price has since increased.
“The Chinese in Uganda have been buying them from us and taking them to their country. I guess they no longer wanted those ones in China because they assumed may be they are already infected,” Mr Grant Mwesigye, a pharmacists at Vita care Pharmacy in Kampala, said yesterday.
One
Apollo, a pharmacists at Plus Medic Pharmacy, in Wandegeya, Kampala
said: “Chinese bought the masks from us about early last month and sent
them back to their countries because they had shortage in their
country.”
The price of sanitisers in some pharmacies has increased
from Shs35,000 to Shs40,000 for the big size. A sanitiser that initially
cost Shs11,500 is now sold at Shs20,000. The small size that was
previously sold at Shs2,400 is now Shs5,000.
In some of the pharmacies that we visited, a box of face masks that used to range from Shs6,000 to 8,000 with 50 pieces is now at 55,000. A single mask that was Shs500, is now Shs3,000.
The Ministry of Health has advised
that there is no need to wear medical masks if one does not have
respiratory symptoms such as cough, sneezing or running nose.
Currently, Uganda has no confirmed case of coronavirus. At least 695
travellers have been isolated for follow up. Of these 488 are Chinese,
143 Ugandans and 64 other nationalities. At least 280 individuals have
completed days of self-isolation.
World Health Organisation (WHO) voiced concern that masks and other protective equipment used by health workers were running out due to “rising demand, hoarding and misuse.”
The novel coronavirus has killed more than 3,300 people, the vast majority in mainland China. There are now more than 95,000 global cases, with infections in more than 80 countries and territories.