Fit 33-year-old Italian recounts falling ill to virus

ROME — Andrea Napoli didn’t fit the usual profile of a coronavirus patient.

At 33, he was in perfect health, with no history of respiratory disease. And he was in top physical shape, thanks to regular workouts, including water polo training.

Still, Mr. Napoli, a lawyer in Rome, developed a cough and fever less than a week after Italy’s premier locked down the entire nation, including the capital, which had continued life as usual while the virus raged in the north. Until that day, Mr. Napoli was following his routine of work, jogging and swimming.

He received a positive diagnosis for COVID-19 three days later.

Initially, Mr. Napoli was told to quarantine at home with the warning that his condition could deteriorate suddenly — and it did. By the next day, he was hospitalized in intensive care, with X-rays confirming he had developed pneumonia.

“Unfortunately, you have to live these things to really understand them totally,” Mr. Napoli said in a Skype interview. “I am 33 years old, in great health — and I found myself suddenly, in less than a day and a half, in intensive care.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death. The vast majority of people recover.

Mr. Napoli spent the next nine days breathing with an oxygen mask. During two days in intensive care, three patients in his ward died. He recalled that doctors were out of breath from pushing equipment around; dressed in protective masks, suits and gloves; and exhausted from the long hours and strain.

“What I saw was a lot, a lot of pain. It was very hard,” Mr. Napoli said. “I heard screams from the other rooms. The constant coughing from the other rooms.”

After another week on a COVID-19 ward, he was moved Friday to a hotel being used for patients recovering from the virus, where he is checked twice a day by a doctor. He still can’t breathe properly, and the oxygen levels in his blood haven’t yet returned to normal.

“I get tired very easily,” he said. “If I simply go from the toilet to the bed, I get out of breath. My muscles hurt because I was actually in bed for nine days, without the possibility of moving. So it wasn’t very simple.”

Mr. Napoli’s first concern when the virus struck Italy was for his parents, in their mid-60s, not himself. With two weeks of quarantine still ahead, he is looking forward to the day he can go out for a simple walk with them — something that is still not allowed under Italy’s strict containment measures.