The Covid-19 Symptoms No One Talks About
Survivors carry guilt, anxiety, and shame
In early July, Dr. Inbar Cohen was diagnosed with Covid-19 in a small city in the southern part of Israel. Her first thought was her patients. Dr. Cohen, a psychologist working in a private clinic, met with dozens of patients in the days before her test. All appointments were held according to regulations, meaning strict social distancing and wearing masks at all times. She was, at that time, pre-symptomatic. Her symptoms appeared days after she was tested. To keep confidentiality, Dr. Cohen didn’t give the Health Ministry the names of her patients. And so, there she found herself, on the heels of a positive test, mentally preparing for the difficult phone calls ahead.
“The first 24 hours were spent calling patients and friends, telling them I’m positive and that they need to go into isolation. It was terrible,” she recalls. “A day before I was diagnosed, I took a car ride with a good friend who’s pregnant. It was a short trip and unfortunately, we weren’t 100% following guidelines. My biggest fear was that I infected her, I couldn’t sleep at night. It is an awful feeling. Luckily, I didn’t infect anyone, but even to cause people to go into isolation, lose work days and money, it’s a terrible feeling of guilt.”
