Covid-19: Bereaved brother warns young not to ignore symptoms

The brother of a man who died in his sleep at home with coronavirus is warning people not to "naively walk into the abyss" by ignoring symptoms.

James Jordan, 40, and his younger brother David, 36, of Salisbury, both tested positive on 30 December.

David went to bed with a cough and "tight chest" on 2 January but James "woke up at six in the morning to find him dead in his sleep".

He said he should have "read" how his brother was doing and contacted 111.

"That's what we should have done - had we done that he would have gone off to hospital the night before and he'd probably still be with us," he said.

"But we just sat there because we thought we were all right because we were relatively young."

Mr Jordan said his brother was a "big chap but a fit chap" who swam 80 lengths of the local leisure centre pool each morning.

"He swam Lake Windermere, which is 10 miles long, in a good time a few years ago and completed a middle-distance triathlon with me," he said.

"We weren't aware of any underlying health conditions so it's a complete shock."

He said on the night before his brother died, they had been getting ready to isolate and had ordered some shopping to be delivered.

"We were getting set to to just concentrate on staying in and getting fit," he said.

"He was coughing quite a lot but beyond that we went off to bed at a sensible sort of time.

"I heard him up at about one o'clock in the morning but when I shouted out to him: 'Are you OK bruv?' he said: 'yeah absolutely fine'.

"I then woke up at six in the morning to find him dead in his sleep."

Mr Jordan, a director of Jordan and Mason estate agents in Salisbury, said: "I don't know how but I should have saved him."

He added: "I was his big brother and you are supposed to look after little brothers."

He said anyone under the age of 50 has to "understand that this can effect them as well" and they should "be vigilant".

"I can see others like us naively walking into the abyss because you don't think it applies to you," he said.

"In your 30s and 40s you probably are a lot safer but what I'm desperately concerned about is that people ignore it. I know that we did and that's something that we live to regret.

"In hindsight I would have taken professional advice when we should have and that's a regret I will have to live with."

People with coronavirus have a wide range of symptoms, ranging from mild to severe, although some will have none at all, but can still be infectious.

Symptoms may appear up to two weeks after exposure to coronavirus, but usually around day five.

Feeling breathless can be a sign of a more serious coronavirus infection.

If you are having trouble breathing, contact your doctor online or over the phone, or the NHS 111 online coronavirus service.

If you are very worried about sudden shortness of breath ring 999.

And the NHS advises: