As part of her job, Dr. Monica Bharel spent a countless amount of time reading and talking to experts across the country about COVID-19. But the Massachusetts Department of Public Health commissioner says she didn’t truly comprehend the disease until she was infected with it herself.
“It was one thing to intellectually understand this evolving disease and an entirely different thing to personally experience it,” Bharel said during a press conference Friday afternoon.
Four weeks to the day since she tested positive for the coronavirus, Bharel was back behind the podium Friday, alongside Gov. Charlie Baker and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders, to provide an update on the state’s response to the pandemic — as well as share her anecdotal experience with the disease.
Bharel said she got tested in late March after her husband called her at work to say their daughter had a fever. Despite being a “vigilant” practician of social distancing from the onset of the outbreak, Bharel said the news made her think that the muscle aches and fatigue she had felt weren’t from simply working long hours and not getting enough sleep, as she had presumed.
Bharel said she got tested that evening and immediately put herself in isolation. The results came back the next day, and more severe symptoms arrived soon after.
“For me, it was about a week of really bad flu-like symptoms and then another week of sheer exhaustion,” Bharel said during an appearance on WGBH earlier Friday morning.
“What was most surprising to me was that when you get the flu or flu-like illnesses, which we’ve all had, it’s a couple of days of really feeling bad,” she added. “I was really struck by how long I was sick from this.”
It’s unclear how Bharel contracted the disease; she noted Friday that her husband — who also works in health care — and their two children all got sick around the same time.
While around 8 percent of COVID-19 cases require hospitalization, they were able to mange their symptoms with lots of Tylenol, fluids, and rest. Still, it wasn’t until the third week that Bharel said she began to regain her strength. After working from home through the illness, she returned to the office for the first time last week.
“I am thankfully feeling back to normal, and I’m just so thankful for that,” she told WGBH.
During the press conference Friday afternoon, Baker said it was “a scary time” for Bharel and the family and friends.
“It was also a little bit of a wake up call for all of us that this is not something that anybody is immune from,” the governor said, noting that Bharel was a “really committed social distancer.”
Baker said the pervasive nature of the disease — which has infected more than 50,000 people and resulted in more than 2,500 deaths in Massachusetts as of Friday — underscores the importance of the state’s fledgling contact tracing program.
“That’s a story that plays out thousands and thousands and thousands of times all over the country and all over the world,” he added. “I’m really glad she’s better.”
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