'I'm taking it easy'

Man on coronavirus watch awaits clearance

DAVID SHENG* and his family have been on coronavirus watch following their exposure to Jamaica's first confirmed victim on Tuesday, but yesterday, he was more concerned about the outcome of the Champions League football match than he was about the implications to his health.

"Right yah now, I'm waiting on Liverpool match to go watch it," said Sheng during a telephone interview with The Gleaner yesterday. "I don't feel any way, but you know, we just have to go on watching it. So far, everything looks all right."

Sheng's wife, a nurse, was among the first health workers to attend to the Jamaican woman who had fallen ill after travelling from the United Kingdom (UK) on March 4. The woman reportedly checked herself into a health centre in the Bull Bay area.

Since her case has been confirmed, The Gleaner understands that several workers at that facility, including Sheng's wife and the doctor who examined her, have been placed in quarantine as the authorities await further developments. Sheng works at The Gleaner Company Media Ltd.

"My wife and the doctor was the first to find out that's what happened to the lady. When they checked her vitals, she had a high fever," he said, adding that while examining the woman, it was revealed to the doctor that she had travelled to the island from the UK last week for a funeral.

It was then, he said, that the woman was referred to the University Hospital of the West Indies and was told not to alight from the vehicle until the doctor's referral letter was passed on to healthcare workers at the hospital, he said.

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The ill-fated doctor was reportedly relocated under quarantine while Sheng's family was told not to venture outdoors until they had been processed by health professionals. His wife, in particular, was told to stay isolated inside their bedroom, but Sheng explained that it was difficult to sever all interaction between his wife and her relatives.

Sheng, his wife, his mother, and their daughter are all under coronavirus watch.

"They (medical professionals) just told us to stay in and that we must not come out until they come here. They were supposed to come here today, but we haven't seen them as yet," said Sheng. "Nothing not really going through my mind. I am just here taking it easy."

He said that his wife is slightly more concerned but said their hopes remained high.

"We try not to touch anywhere that she touches, and we try to do the right thing – sanitise and them things there. Be we can't say she contracted it, because they said she would have started to show symptoms already," he explained.

* Not his real name.

'I don't feel any way, but you know, we just have to go on watching it.'