23-Year-Old COVID Patient Warns Youth: "I Thought It Was a Myth"

"I was affected two weeks ago. I had been feeling tired for some time, I put it down to work (I work nights at Child Protection). But since I see a lot of people, to reassure myself, I preferred to do the coronavirus test, which came back negative. For me, Covid was a myth, a disease reserved for the elderly," he tells L’Obs. He says he had a lot of asthma as a child, but this disease is well controlled.

"Three days after the test, while I was at the office at night, I started coughing, coughing, until I could no longer breathe. I called the firefighters, who took an hour to arrive because they are so overwhelmed right now, it’s chaos. Meanwhile, I was dying. They took me to the Aix-en-Provence University Hospital. Since the services were saturated, I spent three days on a stretcher, it was very uncomfortable. In the end, I had very sore buttocks. At the emergency room, I had two positive tests," continues Hamza.

"I could no longer say a word or walk. I was treated with an aerosol to open my bronchi, I took corticosteroids and was placed on oxygen. In total, I spent eight days in the hospital, six of them on oxygen - the last two days, they took it off to see how I would react. I was in intensive care. All along, I was conscious, that’s the problem, I felt everything. I had severe symptoms, a lot of fever. My lungs were pulling and I had a very bad headache," he adds.

Hamza confides that the staff at the hospital were overwhelmed, and the caregivers passed through his room in a hurry, the injections hurt because they had to go fast. "We couldn’t talk to them, there was no human contact, (Hamza starts coughing), it was very distressing. I am very disappointed, because I saw on social media that many people had gathered to party during the Halloween weekend."

"Young people think they are immortal but when you are affected, you are taken aback, that’s why I want to testify, to raise awareness among this age group. My parents and friends couldn’t come see me at the height of the illness, I was completely alone. I cried about it. And even today, I have to stay isolated. I’m still tired, I feel feverish, I have the impression of having a bad cold. I just sleep while I’m usually very active," concludes the patient.