A Doctor Shared His Experience Recovering from the Covid Ba.5 Variant
Dr. Mike Hansen is a critical care physician and pulmonary medicine specialist who has continually created content during the pandemic dispelling medical misinformation and providing accessible explanations of the different Covid variants. In his latest video, Hansen discusses his own recent experiences of testing positive for what he assumes to be the now-dominant Ba.5 strain of the coronavirus, and what his symptoms and recovery have looked like.
A couple of days after attending a concert, Hansen began to notice symptoms including fatigue, fever, sore throat, a runny nose, and finally a cough.
"The worst part was the first three to four days," he says. "Even though my sore throat really didn't bother me when I would drink liquid or swallow food, whenever I had saliva in the back of my throat and I would go to swallow, that was extremely painful."
He notes that a sore throat has, up until now, been a relatively uncommon symptom, but that there is increasing anecdotal evidence that more people are experiencing a sore throat after contracting the newest Ba.5 variant. "It took about two weeks for the cough to go away," he continues. "I would say I was back to normal, with the exception of a little bit of fatigue, I was back to normal after two weeks of symptoms... I'm back to full strength, I've been working out."
"It's known that these sub-variants are not only escaping the antibodies from previous vaccination, but also from previous infections, including Covid infections of the Omicron variant," he says. However, he adds that the severity of illness does not seem to be higher with the Ba.4 and Ba.5 sub-variants, and that he likely still benefited from some degree of protection from his three vaccination shots.
You Might Also Like
