Cape Town – A 34-year-old man from Cape Town who is recovering from Covid-19 says he will take the vaccine without hesitation because he never wants to relive his experience.
“It is really one of the worst things that I could have gotten. I’ve never been this sick before in my life and I never want to be this sick again, so I’ll take the vaccine immediately,” said Daniel Chetty.
The start of his tough battle with the virus was on Christmas Day when he felt feverish, had a high temperature and felt overwhelmingly fatigued.
“The fatigue is nothing like you will ever experience. You get drained walking from your bedroom to the bathroom or even picking something up from the floor,” he said.
On December 27, he received his positive Covid-19 test results and the next day his symptoms started taking a turn for the worse.
“During that time, my whole morale went down very quickly. I felt like the virus was getting to me and I wasn’t going to survive,” he said.
Another common symptom Chetty experienced was shortness of breath, which worsened to the point of requiring oxygen and being admitted to hospital on New Years Eve.
“My oxygen levels were dangerously low. It got bad very quickly. I was placed on oxygen at Karl Bremer Hospital, I don’t know if it was high-flow oxygen or not. It was all just a bit of a blur at the time because I was just trying to stay alive,” he said.
While at the Brackengate Intermediate Care Facility, Chetty said the hospital staff were outstanding and assisted him on his road to recovery.
“As soon as I got to the facility, things started changing. The doctors and nurses really came around for me and convinced me that I was going to recover and that they had seen worse,” he said
After more than two weeks since his first Covid-19 symptoms, Chetty says he is starting to feel better and could be released within the next week from the Old Mutual isolation facility in Pinelands.
“It’s been a great turnaround for me, but my chest is still a little bit tight.”
“My family has supported me in whatever way they could, with prayers and messages, but that’s all they can do because you aren’t allowed visitors in hopistal. So you do feel like you’re alone,” he said.
The advice Chetty would give to those who are experiencing any of the early Covid-19 symptoms, is to be proactive and get tested as soon as possible.
“Try to stay on top of things and take medication if you have any symptoms. Seek medical advice as soon as you can. After that, just pray, and hope you don’t see the worst of it,” he said.
South Africa is currently facing its second wave of Covid-19 infections and the government has ensured that it will deploy a comprehensive vaccination strategy that aims to reach all parts of the country.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said during his address to the nation on Monday that the vaccine rollout will be the largest and most complex logistical undertaking in the country’s history.
After the three-phased roll out strategy, government aims to have vaccinated around 40 million South Africans or 67% of the population, which is considered to approximate herd immunity.
“I call on all South Africans to be part of the monumental undertaking to roll-out the coronavirus vaccine,” said Ramaphosa.
IOL