Six weeks ago, Simon Strum was exercising twice a week with a personal trainer and walking up to seven kilometres every other day.
Today, the father-of-one can’t get through his grocery shopping without sitting down to catch his breath.
“We thought we were bulletproof because we were fit, young and living in the best country in the world with low case numbers,” Mr Strum, 50, said.
“But the Delta variant … it’s a different ball game.
“If I had known how sick Covid would have made me and how it still impacts me, still unable to walk up hills, I would have been vaccinated a long time ago.”
Mr Strum and his partner, Rebecca Fatouros, 42, are examples of the increasing number of the under 50s with no underlying health conditions who are severely struck down with Covid-19.
Before Ms Fatouros was hospitalised twice last month with coronavirus, she was up at 5am every day for an hour’s exercise.
She was a “very clean” eater, a vegan of 10 years, a busy mum to three teenagers and lived an active lifestyle.
“That’s why I thought I am healthy, I look after my body, I’ll be fine,” she said.
“But when it hit me, I have never been so sick in my life.”
In one of the puzzling unknowns associated with COVID-19, Ms Fatouros tested negative five times, even when she was at St Vincent’s Hospital with sharp chest pains.
She was released and continued isolating at home.
Then she fainted and hit her head on the shower door. NSW Health insisted an ambulance take her to the Prince of Wales Hospital.
As the paramedics were taking her out the door, she received her sixth test results – positive.
“We were very complacent and really thought we were young, living in this naive world where we thought it wouldn‘t happen to us,” she said.
“When it hit my actual household, it was really quite scary because you don’t know how your body is going to react.
“A lot of people ask, is it like a bad flu? It’s like a bad flu gone radioactive.”
One of the strangest symptoms, Ms Fatouros said, was feeling like she was being kicked in the shins. For Mr Strum, it was losing his eyesight.
“There were aches and pains, sharp pains like someone putting a screwdriver in your joints and stabbing you,” he said.
“My eyes were so sore I couldn’t even open them. They were blurred and at the time you’re thinking, ‘is that vision going to come back’?”
Source: The Daily Telegraph