Three weeks after testing positive for novel coronavirus, Detroit Police Chief James Craig is back at work, having beaten the pathogen that he described as an "unknown enemy that wants to take your body over and kill you unless you start punching back."

Detroit's defiant top cop refused to surrender.

On Wednesday, Craig was retested for COVID-19 and the result was negative — a comeback he credits to exercise, hot tea, vitamins, healthy foods and prayer.

"My personal story is my willingness to keep pushing back," Craig told the Free Press in an interview Wednesday night, noting his survival skills kicked in during his first week of illness. "My body said, 'Are you going to sit here and let this enemy take you over? This is not you.' "

And so he got on his exercise bike at the tail end of week one with COVID-19, determined to beat the virus that tore through his department, quarantined hundreds of officers and infected another 170, including a homicide captain and civilian dispatcher who both died from the virus.

Related: How the coronavirus spread through the Detroit Police Department

The infected officers, and particularly those who have lost their lives to the virus, weigh heavily on Craig, who said he is speaking out about his personal ordeal in the hopes that he will inspire other sick people to fight back.

"I want to help people," Craig said. "People need to hear from the survivors."

Cough, fever, chills: 'The unknown enemy'

Craig's symptoms started with a cough, though he initially thought it was his seasonal allergies kicking in. But then came the fever, followed by chills.

On March 26, Craig was tested for COVID-19. The next day, he learned the result was positive.

"I was shocked, somewhat in disbelief," said Craig, who recalled being at home when he got the news and struggled to process it. "What does this mean?"

A self-described news junkie, Craig, 63, said he was all too aware what the media was reporting: People were dying. Those in their 60s were in a higher risk group.

"You think, 'I might not make it out of this. It's just a reality,' " recalled Craig, who admittedly was scared, but decided: "I had to change my thinking."

And so his police mentality took over. He remembered his days as a young officer in Los Angeles, when he and his partner were ambushed by a gang in Los Angeles, his cruiser riddled by bullets. He and his partner, though, escaped unharmed.

"I know what it means to fight for your life," Craig said. "If you give up your will to survive, you will not survive. That's a fact."

And so he fought.

The first two days Craig had no appetite. By day three he tried eating hot soup and a protein bar, though getting them down was tough. His fever reached a high of 101.3. He was weak and developed night sweats.

But he drank plenty of liquids, mainly hot tea and water, and took Vitamin C, Vitamin D, three teaspoons a day of of liquid elderberry, oil of oregano and plant-based immunity boosters, including Congaplex, MediHerb and Andrographis Complex.

By the end of week one, Craig, who has long worked out every day, got on his stationary exercise bike. He started out with 10 minutes. The next few days he added five more minutes, then 10 more minutes. His doctor, family and colleagues were miffed, telling him: " 'Don't overdo it,' " he recalled.

But Craig listened to his body and kept going.

By week three, he was up to one hour on his stationary bike a day, plus 20 minutes of rowing and weight training.

"I started pushing myself. And the more I pushed, the more it wanted to leave me alone," Craig said of the virus. "I was trying to fight this thing, but I had to be thoughtful because I got a doctor saying, 'Don't overdo it.' I got a family saying, 'Don't overdo it.' My daughter was saying, 'I know what you're trying to do.' And when I told her about my one hour on the bike recently, she said, 'You're out of your mind!' "

One day, Craig took a picture of the display on his bike. He had burned 318 calories and pedaled 12.2 miles. He sent the picture to his assistant chief, noting that given all the fears about the virus, he wanted to assure his department that he was OK.

Craig, who is 5 feet 9 and 165 pounds, believes being physically fit played a key role in his recovery.

"When you adopt a fitness lifestyle, whenever your body is attacked ... you're in a better position to fight," said Craig. He recalled thinking to himself when he was sick, "Look, you're not going to take me over. And I don't want to go to the hospital."

Craig also stressed that he didn't want special treatment because he was the police chief: "I was hell-bent on not taking a hospital bed away from someone who needed it more."

Meanwhile, in the back of his mind, Craig knew that he was fighting an evil that his cop days hadn't prepared him for: a novel disease that no human body is equipped to fight, and for which there is no treatment.

"COVID to me is the unknown enemy," Craig said. "Police officers know that when they go to make a traffic stop, they may not know exactly what they're confronting — but they know how to respond. Whereas who trains for COVID? Who knows how to address a pandemic? ... None of us were trained to respond to a COVID-19."

Faith — and letting small stuff go

Craig believes that faith, exercise and healthy eating combined helped him heal — though faith was most important, he stressed.

"First and foremost, prayer was the dominant reason for my surviving. Without prayer, I could not have done the other things ... I could not have gotten out of bed, or regained my appetite, or started exercise."

Craig said he was humbled and inspired by many supporters who reached out to him from across the country and said they were praying for him.

"There's a lot of power in that," he said, recalling one specific prayer warrior who helped him during one of his darkest days: his barber.

Craig said that one day during his illness, he developed discomfort in his chest and started to get nervous. He never experienced shortness of breath, though he feared a pneumonia was trying to set in. He was on the phone that day with his barber, who is also his minister.

"When my barber prayed with me, he talked about my chest. He said, 'Remove whatever is going on his chest,' " said Craig, noting he never told his barber about his chest discomfort. "After that call, I tell you — it went away. It went away."

Through his illness, Craig said that he has learned to focus more on what is important in life, such as helping people, and ignore what he called the "small stuff": the craziness on social media, feuds over political differences, concern about who is saying what on Twitter.

None of it matters, Craig said.

"Leave the small stuff alone and really focus on what you are personally called to do," Craig said. "You have so much clarity when you're fighting a deadly disease that you start thinking about your calling. 'What am I here to do?' It becomes so clear."

For Craig, that calling is helping people, and protecting Detroiters.

He admits, however, that dealing with the cynics, critics and naysayers on social media can sometimes be difficult. For example, when he was first diagnosed with COVID-19, rumors circulated on Twitter and Instagram that he had died.

Craig was angry, and annoyed.

"It was troublesome and I was deeply disturbed," Craig said. "But I ignored it. I focused my attention on getting well."

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com