Being Covid-19 Positive.

In these Coronavirus times, they say you cannot be too careful. They also say you cannot live in fear. You have to find a balance between being careful and being fearful. And you could still end up being Covid-19 positive.

With the rising number of Covid-19 cases (India at 98 lakh cases, 1.4 Lakh deaths reported as I write), and the earliest estimate of a vaccine being deployed in India being sometime in 2021, we’ve all probably heard someone say, most of us will get infected one day or the other.

Well, that one day, was the 9th of October for me, as I tested positive for SARs-CoV-2 (Coronavirus, or Covid-19). That’s the bad news, and the good news for me, because hopefully now as I have recovered from Covid-19, I am supposed to be relatively immune to the threat that all of us are facing today.

How did I, (the CEO of Being Careful, as my son, calls me) get infected?

Well, I stayed home for 6 months and didn’t even leave my gate. None of my family members went out much after the unlock, and we always sanitised everything, and always wore masks in the company of others.

But I made the fatal mistake of getting a carpenter to come home and fix a few shelves in my work-from-home space. I accepted his excuse of “change-in-weather” for his light cough. And I didn’t insist on him going to another hospital when the first one turned him away from being tested because he only had one light symptom.

When the carpenter’s work got extended, I sent him away and asked him to send someone else. But behind my back, he went to work at another apartment in my condominium. The other carpenter he sent, revealed he lived in the same room as the first carpenter, after spending two hours in my house.

Both their temperatures was well below 98.4 degrees, as per the records of my Condo gate’s entries. So either they didn’t have fever, or the reading was inaccurate.

So I got Covid-19. And I got the full range of textbook Covid-19 symptoms to play out through me.

I have to admit, I got away lightly, compared to what many others I know went through with the virus.

Immunity and luck of the draw aside, I’d like to share some of my learnings. And a list of things that helped me and my family get through the illness and our quarantine.

What to do, when someone in your family ends up being Covid-19 positive.

Firstly, don’t panic. Be calm, isolate yourself within your house, and get immediate professional medical attention. If you cannot, or don’t want to go to a hospital, you must get an online consult with your doctor immediately.

If you do not have a doctor, you can find one via various online portals like 1mg.

My first port of call was the Government’s Covid-19 Helpline Number 1075.

You will also find every State’s helpline number on the MoHFW website here.

My call to the 1075 Helpline (via Aarogya Setu), was picked up in the second ring. The lady who responded, quickly put me through to a Doctor. The Doctor heard my symptoms and instantly provided me with a list of things to do, along with medicines to start taking immediately. He also said that a Government Doctor will visit my home in the next 24 hours!

I then called up a chest and asthma specialist, who has been treating me for years, for asthma and breathing problems (yes, I have comorbidities).

Then I watched this video and shared it with my daughter who had tested Covid-19 positive with me. I also shared it with my wife and son who tested negative. (Please do watch the video.)

What next?

Inform everyone you’ve come into contact with recently, about you being Covid-19 positive, so that they can watch out for symptoms and get themselves tested.

I immediately informed my Condominium Office via phone and email, and my wife sent out messages to the various WhatsApp groups of our Condominium, to give them a heads up, and let them know we’re going into quarantine.

It is very important you think through the room you’re going to quarantine yourself in, and all the things you have inside (and what others at home might need later), because once you go into quarantine for at least 14 days, you have to minimise what comes out of the room once you’re inside.

I’ve shared specific details of how I chose my room and what helped, in this post.

What to expect when you have Covid-19. Some Symptoms and Challenges.

There are a lot of articles on the internet that tell you about the symptoms and challenges that come with being Covid-19 positive. Avoid most of them, because they’re mostly negative and insensitively written.

Most of the articles are likely to give you the feeling that you’re going to die, which is 97 out of 100 times not true because the death rate among those being Covid-19 positive in India right now, is less than 3%.

Also, none of the articles I found went beyond standard protocols and medical treatments, into specifics of how to manage your isolation, and what to do when you encounter a series of weird symptoms one after the other.

So I’ve put together some notes on the things I felt, learnt, and did, during my 17-day home quarantine.

Read more on my blog here:
What to expect when you’ve got Covid-19. Symptoms and Challenges.
It is a more detailed read with 26 points that you might find useful.
Do click on the link above and read it.

Thank you for your time.