Ohio coronavirus patient: ‘I had no more air left’
CLEVELAND — Kevin Harris thought he had the flu. His doctor thought he had the flu.
But after taking Tamiflu, the 55-year-old body shop owner from Warren just kept feeling sicker and sicker, to the point where he couldn’t walk to the bathroom without stopping 20 minutes to rest.
“I had no more air left. And I thought, I’m going to die in this bed,” said Harris, who lives alone with his Havanese-poodle puppy.
Only then did he go to Mercy Health-St. Joseph Warren Hospital. And only after several tests was he diagnosed with coronavi- rus on March 12.
Now, after 20 days in the hospital, after being on oxygen and taking a malaria drug, Harris is recovering. And he’s urging people to heed public health warn- ings and stay home to prevent the spread of the disease also known as COVID-19.
“Be afraid, be very afraid,” he said in a phone interview. “People are accusing me of spreading panic. I hope so. The people who don’t believe it’s so bad, the 80% who only get a sniffle? They’re going to know people who are part of the 1% who die. No one is immune. All I want to tell people is take the time to stay way from people and live. Don’t worry about what you’re missing.”
Harris, who has not let his four grown children or his grandchildren visit him in the hospital, has given interviews on national media. He doesn’t want money, or help. He just wants people to know his story.
Harris is not sure how he contracted the coronavirus. He hasn’t traveled out of the country, and he keeps to himself. Even his body shop business is mostly drop-off; he doesn’t interact with customers much, he said.
So when he got sick, the possibility of coronavirus didn’t occur to him.
He’s healthy, he s aid. About three years ago, he dropped 70 pounds. Now he works out every day.
He began feeling a tickle in his throat about 8 p.m. on Sunday, March 1. By 10 p.m., he had a cough. The next day, he went to his doctor for a regularly scheduled check-up.
“I had a fever. I felt like I had the flu,” he said. “I went to the doctor; she looked at me and said, you have the flu.
“I went home and started slowly dying instead of getting better.”
Harris spent the next six days at home, growing sicker.
Finally, on Sunday, March 8, he called friends and family. The wife of one of his employees came over, told him he had pneumonia and took him to the St. Joseph emergency room. He was immediately admitted, he said. But it took three tests and four days of waiting for a coronavirus test to come back positive.
Meanwhile, he said, he was on oxygen and chloroquine, a malaria drug that some countries have tried as a possible remedy for coronavirus and President Donald Trump has touted.
Harris says he won’t return home until he tests negative for coronavirus twice and the hospital holds a news conference to announce he’s disease-free.
But once he’s recovered and the virus is no longer a threat, he said he’s going to stop being such a loner.
“I should have spent more time with friends and family,” he said. “I’m going to go out and we’re gonna kick it, when this is over with.”
Kevin Harris of Warren is recuperating from coronavirus at St. Joseph Hospital. He’s urging others to heed public health warnings.