Dan Collins, a registered nurse from Victoria, has posted a heartfelt plea for greater community cooperation with COVID-19 containment efforts after having been diagnosed with the virus.
Speaking from hotel quarantine six days after testing positive from COVID-19, Dan describes his experience in an attempt to help “beat the virus quickly”.
In the video, he describes having lost his sense of taste and feeling like he had “just had a short jog” after getting out of the shower.
“Currently, I’m just watching if I get a fever, or that it doesn’t get too hard to breathe”, Dan says.
“I’m lucky that I’m young and that I can bounce back”.
Dan says that he had worked in hospital, aged care, community swabbing, door-to-door testing, and in the Flemington and North Melbourne quarantines through the pandemic.
“Every day, there was this air of nervousness among my colleagues,” he mentions regarding his time working on the frontlines.
“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a bit of fear and trepidation right now”.
His hope is that people will have a better understanding of the virus and effects, and comply with public health orders designed to stop the spread.
“It might suck that we have to stay inside or wear masks, but the end goal is that we reduce the cases and that life can return to some semblance of normal”.
“We have to beat it together”.