Sydney couple reveal ongoing Covid symptoms after positive test

Simon Strum and Rebecca Fatouros are examples of the increasing number of the under 50s with no underlying health conditions who are severely struck down with Covid-19 — and are still battling the health impacts.

Six weeks ago, Simon Strum was exercising twice a week with a personal trainer and walking up to seven kilometres every other day.

Today, the father-of-one can’t get through his grocery shopping without sitting down to catch his breath.

“We thought we were bulletproof because we were fit, young and living in the best country in the world with low case numbers,” Mr Strum, 50, said.

“But the Delta variant … it’s a different ball game.

“If I had known how sick Covid would have made me and how it still impacts me, still unable to walk up hills, I would have been vaccinated a long time ago.”

Four weeks after the Eastern Suburbs building manager tested positive to Covid-19, he is no longer contagious but the effects of the virus still linger.

Rebecca Fatouros and her partner Simon Strum are still suffering ill-effects after contracting Covid-19 four weeks ago. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Mr Strum’s taste hasn’t returned, he has a stubborn cough and what he calls a “Covid fuzz” — difficulty concentrating and feeling exhausted after lengthy conversations.

“I’m getting puffed just talking to you,” he said this week.

Mr Strum and his partner, Rebecca Fatouros, 42, are examples of the increasing number of the under 50s with no underlying health conditions who are severely struck down with Covid-19.

Brazilian citizen Adriana Midori Takara, 38, died in hospital last week after being diagnosed with Covid-19 and as of Thursday, 17 people under 40 were in ICU with the virus.

According to NSW Health, during this latest outbreak, 23 per cent of those in hospital with Covid-19 are aged between 30 and 49 (half of which are not usually eligible for a vaccine).

In a University of NSW study on the long term impacts of COVID-19 last year, researchers found three per cent of people aged 30-49 still had symptoms three months on.

Most people recovered from the flu after about two weeks, Associate Professor Bette Liu said.

“If you think 3 per cent doesn’t seem a lot three months quite a long time to be unwell for,” she said.

“Also you think about the hundreds of people in NSW, or millions worldwide, in that age group who have been affected, it’s a significant number.”

Meir Wilenkin contracted Covid-19 while living in New York in March, 2020.

The 27-year-old, who moved to Sydney with his wife three months ago, had no underlying health conditions, ran four kilometres a day, played basketball twice a week and had a very health diet.

Sixteen months on he is still feeling the effects of long Covid.

“When I exert myself too much I am incapacitated for a day or two,” Mr Wilenkin, who received his first vaccine on Thursday, said.

“I’ve been tutoring and teaching over Zoom at the moment.

“If I were to do back to back classes and go shopping and carry heavy bags, run two or three other errands and go for a walk that might be over the threshold.

“The next day I might wake up with headache, dizziness and fatigue.”

Meir Wilenkin, 27, is still battling the effects of Covid-19 sixteen months after being diagnosed. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

He spent “a lot of money” on doctors trying to figure out why he was still experiencing symptoms months on when his wife had recovered after two weeks.

While he is now going for walks and shooting hoops occasionally, it has been a very slow recovery.

“Unlike myself a lot of young people haven’t had first hand experience of how bad it can be,” he said.

“If you have been through Covid and it was like a cold for you or even asymptomatic, then it‘s very easy to start believing some of the conspiracies surrounding it.

“I was 26, running, doing push ups and eating extremely healthy and I got hit extremely hard.

“Although maybe statistically in terms of dying and being put on ventilator young people have a lower risk but it’s the contrary in relation to long Covid.”

The Delta variant is proving to be even more debilitating than Covid’s early strains with health authorities warning they’ve seen many people under the age of 55 requiring hospitalisation in Sydney’s current outbreak.

Before Ms Fatouros was hospitalised twice last month with coronavirus, she was up at 5am every day for an hour’s exercise.

She was a “very clean” eater, a vegan of 10 years, a busy mum to three teenagers and lived an active lifestyle.

“That’s why I thought I am healthy, I look after my body, I’ll be fine,” she said.

“But when it hit me, I have never been so sick in my life.”

In late June, Mr Strum’s 14-year-old son, Jason, contracted COVID-19 after visiting his mother and grandmother.

Simon Strum, 50, in St Vincent’s Hospital in June after being diagnosed with Covid-19. Picture: Supplied

Jason Strum, 14, in bed with dog Rocco after being diagnosed with Covid. Picture: Supplied

The infections were linked to the broader Great Ocean Foods cluster.

Not knowing he had been exposed to the virus, Jason returned to the Eastern Suburbs and unknowingly passed it on.

On the night of June 26, Jason and Mr Strum went to Ms Fatouros’s home in Bondi for dinner.

There was also a family friend there and Ms Fatouros’s three children, age 14, 16 and 18, and her mother.

The virus circulated the dinner table and the family friend unknowingly took it home to her parents.

On June 27, as authorities tried to get a handle on the blooming Great Ocean Foods cluster, Jason, who went to an optometrist complaining of blurry vision, was notified he was a close contact.

The positive test results started to roll in.

Jason, who had mild symptoms throughout the infection, was positive and two days later Mr Strum tested positive.

Then Ms Fatouros’s family friend tested positive and so did her parents.

Despite being in isolation in the same house together, only one of Ms Fatouros’s children, her 14-year-old son, tested positive for the virus. So did her mother.

The couple are still battling the lingering effects of the virus. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Ms Fatouros’s 16-year-old daughter wore a mask constantly and kept her distance.

In one of the puzzling unknowns associated with COVID-19, Ms Fatouros tested negative five times, even when she was at St Vincent’s Hospital with sharp chest pains.

She was released and continued isolating at home.

Then she fainted and hit her head on the shower door. NSW Health insisted an ambulance take her to the Prince of Wales Hospital.

As the paramedics were taking her out the door, she received her sixth test results – positive.

“We were very complacent and really thought we were young, living in this naive world where we thought it wouldn‘t happen to us,” she said.

“When it hit my actual household, it was really quite scary because you don’t know how your body is going to react.

“A lot of people ask, is it like a bad flu? It’s like a bad flu gone radioactive.”

One of the strangest symptoms, Ms Fatouros said, was feeling like she was being kicked in the shins. For Mr Strum, it was losing his eyesight.

“There were aches and pains, sharp pains like someone putting a screwdriver in your joints and stabbing you,” he said.

“My eyes were so sore I couldn’t even open them. They were blurred and at the time you’re thinking, ‘is that vision going to come back’?”

Medical equipment was sent to Mr Strum’s house so he and Jason could monitor their heart rates and oxygen levels and report back to the “amazing” team at NSW Health that checked in daily.

At one point, NSW Health insisted he go to St Vincent’s Hospital, where he only stayed for the day so his son wasn’t home alone.

Mr Strum, who got the all clear from doctors weeks ago, admits he was hesitant to get AstraZeneca before he got sick. It seemed like there was no urgency and he could afford to wait for Pfizer.

“When I was taken to hospital, the doctor asked if I had been vaccinated at the time,” he said.

“I said no and he replied that I wouldn’t be there if I had been.”