A mother-of-three fighting coronavirus has revealed how it left her feeling like her whole body was on fire and she ‘had swallowed glass’.
Photographer Mandy Charlton, 46, was admitted to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle via ambulance on Friday evening with a temperature of more than 39C.
She is now self-isolating at home until the end of the week and taking paracetamol to recover.
Speaking about her horrific symptoms, Mandy, from Newcastle, said: ‘I had a high temperature and a throat that felt like I’d swallowed glass. I’ve been sleeping approximately 20 hours a day.’
All you need to know about coronavirus
The coronavirus outbreak has caused havoc all over the world, with the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance admitting there are likely to be around 55,000 cases of coronavirus currently in the UK.
On Tuesday officials recorded the biggest daily spike in cases yet, with 407 patients diagnosed in the past 24 hours – meaning 1,950 Britons have now caught it.
The death toll also jumped by 16 to 71 on Tuesday.
Speaking about her experience with the killer virus, Mandy said: ‘I know my temperature was once 37.9 and once over 39. I have a weird dry cough which hurts.
‘My body has felt like it has been on fire, waking up drenched, horrible. I’ve had flu before but this was something else.
‘When it came to the hospital saying I was well enough to go home and self-isolate, I asked how I would get home.
‘They said I could wait nine hours whilst they tried to get some isolation transport or I could ask a friend.
‘I had a panic attack at that point, thankful for my best friend who risked her own health to get me home.
‘I don’t for one moment blame the doctors or the nurses, I wholly place the blame on the government.’
Entrepreneur Mandy started feeling unwell after one of her daughters came home from school with a fever last week and believes she contracted the virus from her.
She claims despite being admitted to the hospital’s coronavirus isolation unit upon arrival, she was ‘shocked’ to find the porters pushing her bed to a scan allegedly weren’t being given face masks and even paramedics were having to borrow them from the wards.
Mandy spent a night in the hospital, before being discharged 12 hours later, and claims she had to use a hospital gown as a pillow because the hospital had run out of pillows.
She said luckily, her children are old enough to be able to look after themselves during her self-isolation period.
Mandy said: ‘One of the nurses said I was lucky to be admitted when I was.
‘At the moment they’re coping, but in a few weeks they won’t be.
‘The porters weren’t even given masks.
‘I asked one of them and he said the day before they’d had to wear plastic visors but then on that day, Friday, they’d been told they would be fine without any protection.
‘The paramedics were having to borrow masks and aprons as they’d run out.’