A year after corona still complaints: ‘It is confronting’

Almost a year ago, Marie-Louise Jonkers (64) from Boekel became very ill while on holiday with a good friend in Gran Canaria. She turned out to be infected with the corona virus and her friend also became ill. Marie-Louise still has complaints. “I am easily tired, have a constant cough and my concentration is less.”

The holiday started on March 7. The friends had just finished their first breakfast and were in the sun when Marie-Louise got word that she might be infected. She works in healthcare and someone she had been with turned out to have the corona virus.

Like a James Bond movie

The friends went straight to their room to be on the safe side. “It turned out that I had a height. Then the whole mill started to turn.”

They were not allowed to leave the hotel room until they were taken to a house in the mountains. “It was like a James Bond movie. People came by in special suits. We didn’t know what happened to us.” The ladies were both infected with the virus.

“We got very sick. High fever and cough. I was afraid that the virus was going to do something to my body, because I felt things that I did not know. We kept trying to think ‘we are not going to die’.”

Marie-Louise will always remember one night. “I saw that it went completely wrong with Joke. I was terrified and almost called the emergency services. When Joke woke up that morning, I asked how it was going. She raised her thumb.”

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