Young climate change activist Greta Thunberg told her followers that it was “extremely likely” she had the novel coronavirus as she urged the public to stay at home.
The 17-year-old Swede said in an Instagram post Tuesday that she began feeling symptoms after returning from a trip around central Europe.
“Around ten days ago I started feeling some symptoms,” she said. “I was feeling tired, had shivers, a sore throat and coughed.”
Thunberg said her father, who she traveled with to Brussels, also experienced similar symptoms but much more intense. She didn’t get tested for COVID-19, explaining that everyone in Sweden who had symptoms and weren’t in need of emergency medical care were told to stay home and isolate themselves.
She said she recovered from the illness with a message: Stay home. According to Thunberg, she experienced symptoms that were milder than her last cold and that she knew she had COVID-19 only because her father was simultaneously recovering from the same illness.
“And this is what makes it so much more dangerous,” she said. “We who don’t belong to a risk group have an enormous responsibility, our actions can be the difference between life and death for many others.”
She urges young people, even those who may not notice symptoms, to remain at home to avoid passing the virus unknowingly to at-risk groups.
Health experts have reiterated the importance of social distancing and staying at home to “flatten the curve,” or spreading out the number of coronavirus cases over a longer period to time in order to avoid a rapid spike of cases that could overwhelm the health care system.
While many European countries are moving closer to a near-lockdown, Sweden has decided to keep a number of businesses open including their popular ski resorts, according to Deutsche Welle.
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