[ad_1]
Dimitar Ruskov works for one of the largest accounting and auditing firms in Dallas, Texas. Since mid-March he has been working from home and observing social distancing. But one mistake cost him a coronavirus infection.
A group of Bulgarians from Atlanta go to a team building in Florida for the 4th of July. 8 out of 10 people are infected with the coronavirus. Some of them also go to the hospital.
These are just a few of the hundreds of Bulgarians in the United States diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last two months. The infection is on the rise among the Bulgarian community largely due to its widespread use in the United States, but also because Bulgarians are less observant of social distancing measures and believe in conspiracy theories that downplay the disease, doctors say. .
“In the first two months, I even went to the supermarket only once every two weeks. My mother was a guest, she is 60 years old and we take care of each other. I followed everything very strictly,” said Dimitar Ruskov, 39, of Dallas.
Texas was one of the first states to relax the measures under pressure from Donald Trump in May. “So I decided to fix my fence, I saw that my neighbor fixed his and I asked him to help me. We only work two hours a day; it’s hot in Texas in May. For a month and a half, we slowly worked only in the afternoons.
In June, however, it became clear that my neighbor had fallen ill after he told me one day that he was feeling unwell and could not come, ”Ruskov explained. It turns out that his neighbor contracted the virus from his 20-year-old son. The whole family tests positive for coronavirus. Resign too. But his neighbor contracted a severe form of the disease and even lost consciousness.
For the Bulgarian, the severe symptoms lasted 9 days with fever and a high temperature of about 40 degrees Celsius, back pain, joints and muscles. “There was nothing I could do to lower that temperature.
The drugs got her down for an hour and then back up, “says Dimitar. At one point, he started taking an antibiotic from Bulgaria. Dimitar’s first PCR test was negative for coronavirus. He performs a second test with saliva, which shows the presence of the virus.
With about 650,000 coronavirus cases and more than 13,000 victims, Texas is one of those states where the situation has worsened in recent months due to hasty relaxation of social distancing measures. Positive cases increased from an average of 15% to almost 25% of all tests done in August.
In April, many of our compatriots in New York said they were experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, but then there was a dearth of evidence and it was difficult to prove whether it was a coronavirus or a cold. New York was then the focus of the American pandemic.
Now the most infected Bulgarians appear to be in the Chicago area. The long list includes people of all ages, professions and health conditions, showed a BG VOICE inspection with doctors, business owners and our compatriots infected with the coronavirus.
Ivo Kostov is 40 years old and lives in Chicago. On August 4, he began experiencing a sore throat and sneezing, which was not a common symptom of COVID-19. “That’s why I didn’t take it seriously. But the next night things got worse. On August 6 a slight fever appeared,” says Ivo. He then makes an appointment for a coronavirus test, which is in two days.
But the next day, August 7, he felt much better and even took his wife to dinner at a restaurant. But it does not cancel the trial time. The positive result comes 4 days later. But Ivo already has a very high temperature, between 38.3 and 39.6 degrees, which is difficult to eliminate.
“I also had a fever to such an extent that if I held the phone, it would fall out of my hands. I made a mistake trying to move a plate with a glass on the table to the sink and just at that moment I had a crisis and the glass, of course, fell and broke ”, says Ivo. Despite severe symptoms, he did not follow his wife’s advice to go to the hospital.
The next day, however, he went to the ER, where he was diagnosed with double pneumonia, likely caused by the coronavirus. His doctors prescribed antibiotics and asked Ivo to stay in the hospital. However, he refused. “I was hoping it would go away with antibiotics. I also thought this virus was not that serious and I would take it home with me,” says Ivo.
But it gets worse, you can’t even perform basic computer actions. Next, Ivo buys a device that measures the oxygen level in the blood. The results are stressful, below the critical level.
The next day his condition worsened. “There wasn’t enough oxygen. You don’t breathe normally and I was gone from this world… I had thought I would not go to the hospital – I’m stubborn because I’m a Capricorn,” says Ivo.
But the virus is even more stubborn. “My hands were blue up to the elbows. I knew if I didn’t go to the hospital, I would die,” says Ivo. On August 15, his wife took him to the emergency room and they left him for several days, during which the doctors increased the dose of oxygen to the maximum before the next step, intubation, was necessary.
“It just came to our notice then. They did more tests on me, and it wasn’t until the evening that they took me out of the emergency room and placed me on the ninth floor of Northwest Hospital in Arlington Heights, which is for covid patients only,” says Ivo.
But the next day, his condition worsened again: he could not reach the bedroom window or the bathroom. The cough is painful.
“Doctors started giving me remdesivir (a drug that helps patients recover faster with COVID-19),” says Ivo.
But even that doesn’t help. The next day, a doctor came and offered to join the experimental plasma treatment of cured patients. “I signed the documents and on August 17 they began to cast plasma on me,” says Ivo.
“It wasn’t until August 20 that I started to see an improvement and started walking around the room. They reduced the dose of oxygen that they gave me with a machine. The next day they gave me the last dose of remdesivir and they released me from the hospital.
He had lost 11 kg.
I only ate fruit and some fish all week, “says Ivo.
On August 23, a new test was done, which was also positive. “This virus is very persistent,” according to Ivo. 4 days later comes the negative result. And there are antibodies in Ivo’s blood. Now he is determined to donate plasma from his blood to help other patients.
Her 12-year-old son also contracted the coronavirus, without a fever, but with a sore throat and a severe cough that lasted for ten days.
Now Ivo is waiting for the hospital bill, which will be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Your insurance has a deductible of $ 10,000. But most insurance companies abolished this fee when the patient was sick with COVID-19, giving Ivo hope that he will get away with it after losing a month of work.
However, it is more important to him that more Bulgarians listen to his story after reading thousands of comments on social media, questioning the data on those infected and the truth about the existence of the pandemic. “I want people to know that this is not a harmless virus. Nobody knows if he, if he catches it, will go to the harmless spine or experience what I went through.
That is why it is better for people to keep their distance, wear masks and have constant hygiene so that they do not experience what I have lived. If I thought I was going to die, then the situation is dire. I don’t wish it on anyone, “says Ivo. He still doesn’t know where the coronavirus was infected.
Illinois is one of the states that has introduced the strictest measures and a long home stay. There are more than 240,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and more than 8,300 deaths. In the United States, the number of cases has exceeded 6 million and the number of deaths has exceeded 184,000.
However, the data does not prevent many Bulgarians from sharing conspiracy theories, figures adjusted to “prove” their thesis that the size of the pandemic is exaggerated by the authorities, and wearing a mask or not has become a political slogan in the election year.
However, with the increase in the number of infected Bulgarians in Chicago, recent weeks have seen a change in attitudes towards the infection. Staff in Bulgarian restaurants and many businesses wear masks, which did not happen in the first weeks after they were allowed to open.
Conspiracies shared by Bulgarian groups also decreased (replaced by those related to racial protests in the country). But the boom in the infected in recent weeks is a fact.
[ad_2]
