Her week in isolation, although tough, was “manageable”, says the student, as she spent time “working on her university assignments and watching television.”(Representational/File)
22-year-old & 3 of family
Student, Gurgaon
Discharged on March 28
As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the United Kingdom, and the world, the 22-year-old student, like many of her classmates, decided to return to India in mid-March. But within days of arriving home, she began to complain of fever and a sore throat. “I gave my sample for testing on March 16 at the government hospital in Gurgaon and on March 19, I tested positive,” she says on the phone.
Samples of three of her family members — her brother, father, and grandmother, who were all asymptomatic then — were also taken and within days, they were declared positive too.
“When I returned from London, I knew that the situation was serious. But I had not imagined that my family and I would find ourselves in such a situation within two weeks of my return,” she says.
“I had initially been admitted to the Civil Hospital in Gurgaon. Two days later, I shifted to a private hospital,” she says. Her family too shifted to the same hospital.
Her week in isolation, although tough, was “manageable”, says the student, as she spent time “working on her university assignments and watching television.”
“Passing time at the private hospital was not very difficult. It was harder at the Civil Hospital because there was no entertainment. Even at the private hospital, the lack of WiFi was an issue because everything I was doing, from assignments and chats with my professors to video calls with relatives, required Internet,” she says.
But quibbles aside, she is happy that she is finally COVID-free. While the 22-year-old and her brother were discharged on March 28, her father and grandmother were released on Wednesday (April 1).
“It feels good to be back home with my family. It’s been almost three months since we stayed together… On my return from London, I thought I would be able to spend some time with them, but I was moved to the isolation ward within a couple of days. The good thing is, the isolation helped me complete all my assignments. Now I can focus on my family,” she smiles.