Coronavirus: Europe’s young hit hard, reeling from Covid-19 impact
- Keen amateur runner Max Sprick, 33, found himself struggling to walk more than a few steps after he contracted the disease
- German book editor Elisabeth Schmitten, 34, says she still has breathing problems seven months after falling ill
This is the fifth story in a 15-part series on the Covid-19 disease, one year after it first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It explores how people in Europe paid a personal price for a pathogen that initially seemed so far away. Please support us on our mission to bring you quality journalism.
When he was confirmed as a Covid-19 patient six days after an evening out with three friends, he said: “I felt exhausted in a way that I didn’t know.
“I had to breathe in very hard, to have the feeling that the air came into my lungs. This was also the worst moment: fearing that there wouldn’t be enough breathing before I went to sleep.”
Before falling sick, the 33-year-old from Munich had good reason not to be too worried about the virus, as doctors had been saying from the beginning that older people were more vulnerable.
But Sprick found himself unable to walk uninterrupted from one room to another in his home, which was a big shock to a man used to running up to 130km (80 miles) a week.
“I have to confess – I underestimated the virus,” he said. “I was running so many kilometres before, but now every step was challenging. I couldn’t walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, without having to sit down, rest and take some deep breaths.”
