My family got Covid-19: What we have learnt in the past week

It is likely that the government will soon announce more stringent lock-down measures to contain the Covid-19 epidemic. This will have massive implications for our economy, but we should all support it.

This is why I do.

In the last week my family became part of the statistics. Both my children have tested positive. I’m still waiting for my test results, but since I've been caring for them and exhibit similar symptoms, I (and my doctor) assume that the result will be the same.

Having lived with Covid-19 in my house for more than a week, I have learned a lot. It took some courage to write about it, because my children are very private and have always steered clear of the media.

However, with so many people ignoring the social distancing and isolation requests by government they have agreed that I can write about it.

So what have we learned?

Let me start with the most important thing:

You might not know that you have it

Our symptoms differed vastly. My one child was desperately ill. She ran a very high fever for about four days, developed a bad cough and became very short of breath.

For all of us it started with diarrhoea and then we bizarrely lost our sense of taste and smell.

However, for my son and I it felt more like a very bad head cold.

We never had a fever but felt extreme exhaustion, had sore throats and tight chests. 

Given the severity of my daughter’s symptoms, we knew that she was likely to have contracted the Covid-19 virus even before it was confirmed. However, if it wasn’t for her and of course the public awareness education, we would have assumed that we only had bad colds.