If you've kept up with anecdotal reports and descriptions from people who've been unlucky enough to have contracted COVID-19, then you're likely aware that there's a wide range of just how bad this thing can make a person feel. Some people don't even realize they had it, while some make it sound like hell on earth.
Now that he's better, Tom Hanks, who is thus far the most famous person to get it (sorry to Idris Elba, Von Miller, Kevin Durant, Boris Johnson, and whoever else) is describing how bad he and wife Rita Wilson's cases of coronavirus were.
In an interview he conducted with The National Defense Radio Show(and which was summarized by Entertainment Weekly) Hanks said that he and Wilson went through different ordeals.
Hanks said that he had "bad body aches" in addition to being "very fatigued," but that things sucked even more for Rita.
“Rita went through a tougher time than I did,” he revealed. “She had a much higher fever. She had lost her sense of taste and sense of smell. She got absolutely no joy from food for a better part of three weeks.”
He also said that Wilson “was so nauseous, she had to crawl on the floor from the bed to the facilities.”
The power couple first registered positive tests in early March, while in Australia because Hanks has a role as Elvis' longtime manager in an untitled Elvis Presley biopic. Following Hanks' diagnosis, production for that film was put on hold.
In addition to feeling awful, both Hanks and Wilson had to spend three days quarantined in a local hospital.
“It was relatively early in Australia’s response to the coronavirus, and they wanted us to not give it to anyone else. That’s why we were in lockdown," Hanks said.
He added that he tried to exercise, but he was "wiped" after about 10-minutes of physical activity.
“Whoever it was, a doctor or nurse, would come into our air pressurized, isolation rooms. She said, ‘How are you feeling?’ and I said, ‘I just had the weirdest thing. I just tried to do basic stretches and exercises on the floor and I couldn’t even get halfway through,” Hanks shared. “And she looked at me through her glasses like she was talking to the dumbest human being. And she said, ‘You have COVID-19.'”
The two returned to Los Angeles in late March. About two weeks or so after that, Wilson gave an interview to Gayle King, which was her first since battling the illness. Wilson described her symptoms, saying she "felt extremely achy, uncomfortable, didn't want to be touched, and then the fever started."
Just like her husband said, she also reported losing her sense of taste and smell, in addition to suffering from "chills like I never had before."
They're now both believed to have immunity, which is better than getting nothing out of this. They've both given blood to help researchers try and pin down a vaccine.
It's not like you were otherwise going to let sick people sneeze in your mouth or whatever, but let these tales serve as yet another warning to hold out as long as you can until such a vaccine is (hopefully) made available.
