A BRITISH coronavirus has described the bug as feeling like “every pore opening up” after leaving the quarantined ship on which two died.
David Abel and wife Sally, from Northamptonshire, were among 3,700 people quarantined on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan after cases of the bug were found on board two weeks ago.
A total of 620 cases were later diagnosed on the ship, David and Sally among them, and two people – an 87-year-old man and 84-year-old woman – later died.
Describing the symptoms he experienced on Facebook, Mr Abel wrote: “We arrived in lovely hospital [in Japan] a couple of hours ago.
“Outside the hospital I came over a bit weird and nearly passed out.
“Every pore on my body opened and i was wheelchaired to our room.
“Full health inspection and now we know what’s going on.
“We both contracted a cold (unaware of) and it has not yet turned into pneumonia. (we do have coronavirus).
“Tomorrow the big tests commence. chest x-rays, ECG, chest scan, urine + more.
“We are both in the best place!”
The couple will miss an evacuation flight on Friday for around 70 Brits who have tested negative for the virus.
The flight will take off from Tokyo and land at the Boscombe Down Ministry of Defence base near Salisbury, Wiltshire in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Mr Abel said that, following treatment, the couple will need to test negative for coronavirus three times before they are able to travel home.
He later added that he and his wife were “thinking of all the Brits flying to UK tomorrow.”
One Brit who had been on the ship and has recovered from the virus posted to Facebook to say he was heading home.
“Informed we will have to do another 2weeks quarentine back in blighty although japan has set me free as all ok,” said Alex Steele.
All passengers on Friday’s flight will be taken to Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral for a further 14 days of quarantine.
Two other British passengers, Alan Sandford and his wife Vanessa, said they were “very happy” to be flying back to the UK.
Mr Sandford, from Nottinghamshire, told BBC Breakfast they had both been given a certificate saying their coronavirus tests were negative.
He added the last few weeks had “certainly tested us” and been “a major inconvenience” but, because they were both fit and well, they had “been able to cope”.
“When I think of other people – like those on the inside cabins who have got no daylight coming in at all – it’s horrific really,” he said.
The European Commission has also announced that the EU will be financing the repatriation of citizens from any of the EU27 still stuck on the Diamond Princess.
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