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“At night, all the symptoms would hit me again. The nights were nightmares,” he said.

His fever would spike, but, with no thermometer in the house, he can’t even say how high, just that he felt like he was “boiling.”

“If you have headache, fever, chest pain, imagine having all those symptoms at once. I’ve never been that sick before,” he said.

Nashali has no idea where he might’ve contracted the virus, but believes it was community transfer. He hadn’t travelled anywhere and, at the time he first started feeling unwell, he was only going to work and the grocery store. Public health officials know now that asymptomatic transfer is possible with people getting the virus from others who weren’t even presenting as sick.

Nashali received two weeks of paid leave once he was confirmed positive. Now, at the end of that period and with no ongoing symptoms and with full clearance to return to work as long as he maintains physical distancing, he says he will likely continue to take unpaid leave for another week or two just to put his coworkers at ease, several of whom were concerned after the positive diagnosis was shared with employees.

His sense of smell and taste, which disappeared a few days after he was tested for the virus, have returned, too. He noticed those symptoms while he was eating meat and potatoes, and, despite the meal being seasoned, it tasted bland.

“Imagine a food with no salt,” he said.

Nashali had a misconception that there wasn’t a health risk to people like him. He now knows how wrong he was.

“I think what people should know, especially young people like me, they shouldn’t make assumptions that they are strong, healthy and young and, ‘I can’t get this infection.’ Because, for me, that was the last thing I was thinking about, for me to be a victim of the virus. I just want them to know it could happen to anybody, if it happened to me. We just have to take the precautions. Stay home and maybe we can reduce the spread.”

syogaretnam@postmedia.com

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