Surviving the grip of Covid-19

Surviving the grip of Covid-19

Writer Hedda Mittner

While the number of Covid-19 infections is coming down and we seem to be over the worst of the second wave that crept up on us over the festive season, the second round of South Africa’s bout against the Coronavirus has left many people shaken. It felt different to the first round; this time, most of us personally knew people who had become sick – neighbours, friends, colleagues, family members – and even some who died.

We all heard the news reports about how the healthcare system was struggling to cope, how our hospitals were filled to capacity, how many doctors and medical personnel were either sick or in quarantine, leaving healthcare facilities understaffed and those able to work under immense pressure. Those of us who were fortunate enough to be spared the experience of Covid-19, could only imagine what it was like to have actually lived through those frightening weeks.

“When I received my positive test result on 15 December, I was almost relieved. I just thought: Okay, so I have it now,” says Dr Wendy Cooke who, as a medical doctor, always had a higher than average chance of contracting the disease via a patient. She admits that, as a 65-year-old woman with comorbidities (overweight and diabetic) it was a scary diagnosis, and she was “terrified” about infecting her 86-year-old husband.

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