I Had The COVID-19 Vaccine and Went Straight Into The Pandemic

A Real Life Experience in Case You are doubting the Vaccine Efficacy

Basically, I had one shot of the COVID-19 and I had to travel to a country where the pandemic was one of its least worries. What you are about to read is a real story. I won’t disclose the exact country where it happened for political reasons. But I rest assured that by the end of the article you will have a pretty rough idea of where did it happen.

For the past year, living abroad away from your own family have been very challenging with all the restrictions in travel between countries. It hasn’t been easy to gather families and get together. And adding to that the fear of illness of our beloved ones who are distant from us, It’s not a situation anyone would want to be in.

Being part of the healthcare service, I underwent an accelerated rollout program to get my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on January 21. At that point with all the news doubting the vaccine efficacy, I had the same feeling of a rat lab who will be a part of a huge trial. But I couldn’t really imagine anything bad that could happen. Coming from a medical background, the worst thing that I could imagine would be the vaccine not working.

By the end of January 21, I and my wife came to know that my father-in-law and some of my family members are unwell with COVID-19. In my home country, due to “sub-optimal” measures, the virus has been spreading rapidly, sweeping everyone in its way. I decided to travel with my wife to attend to our families. As some minds would see it as a risky decision, my wife and I saw it as a must. For those of you who don’t know, most of the developing countries lack the capacity to test and trace COVID-19 infections compared to developed countries, not to mention how to manage it on a national level. While looking at the official low Coronavirus deaths and infections figures in my home country I said to myself “Even if these numbers were underrepresented, I doubt the situation will be as bad compared to the states or the UK. We managed to find a flight, got our travel tests cleared, and we made it home in an attempt to support our families.

Two days after my arrival, both my parents started to have a fever as well. My father told me that he had been in contact with someone who had been unwell a few days earlier (He works as a Doctor and he sees many sick patients). I got both my parents tested and the results were positive, they both caught it. While the rest of my family had to isolate separately, I chose to stay with my parents to attend to their needs, I couldn’t isolate myself away from them as at that point I thought If they had it, chances are they infected me as well. The first few days were fine, then along with the beginning of the second-week things started going downhill. Ongoing fever, continuous cough, loss of energy and body pains along with borderline blood oxygen saturations. Both had CT scans that showed lung tissue changes.

During the same period, my father-in-law passed away post-COVID infection. While my aunt who already was admitted to the hospital with the same infection got ventilated, I was trying to keep up with my own hospital that I set up at home for both of my parents — as hospitals are filled up, your chances are better with buying all the medications along with oxygen cylinders and managing yourself at home — If you know what you are doing. Then the news of my aunt passing away after fighting her illness made things even more challenging. It seemed that everyone was fighting their own battle with the disease. Both my parents were started on many medications. We spent a critical few days before luckily, my parents started the recovery curve.

During their time of illness, I struggled to adhere to optimal isolation procedures. I have been to multiple burials which involved minimal mask-wearing. I had to be in hospitals filled with coronavirus patients, public places and governmental places for urgent errands and I saw many people with minimal coronavirus awareness. I stayed well when everyone in my family was unwell, and this was a blessing as it has allowed me to attend to them. At that point, being well, I couldn’t factor in any reason other than having the vaccine more than 10 days before arriving in the country and god’s will to keep me well to help my family. Later on, I came to know that each one of my friends had either someone with a serious illness or experienced a family death. Before coming back home, the best I could do was track my social media feeds for news, but being there in person gave me an in-depth perspective. I was literally inside an uncontrolled active pandemic with no quarantine or rules of any sort.

So the takeaway that the vaccine works and everyone should have it? Not really. This is not a scientific experiment. In retrospect, I may have got coronavirus infection even before I travelled with minimum symptoms not enough for me to recognise. There may be other undiscovered factors.

Should you stay at home and avoid all travel? probably you should, but as much as your mental and body health allows it really. Most of us are frustrated with quarantine, but in reality, the no-quarantine life can have some serious implications if not done righteously.

I would say my takeaway message is that the times we are facing are probably once in a lifetime — or at least I hope so. I would encourage everyone to maintain a high level of resilience and hope for the best while preparing for the worst. Stay safe.