Israeli businessman Roni Mana, who contracted the coronavirus, discussed the difficult ordeal he went through in an interview with Channel 12 News on Sunday.
"During the first wave I was very careful, I kept to myself," Mana said. "A friend who met me told me to come to a party. And I went, and then I ended up staying at home for three weeks. It was a difficult time period that I don't want to remember. The virus is deadly, the symptoms stay with you even after you recover - muscle aches, memory loss and lack of sense of taste."
Mana appealed to those who took the virus lightly and said, "This is not the flu and it’s not even close to it. I have three friends who became infected, and two of them almost reached the point where they had to be put on a respirator. I too felt terrible."
The period of isolation, Mana said, also adds to the difficulty of dealing with the disease. "You are tossed aside, people are afraid to approach you, I have children and I could not go near them," he said.
Mana also stressed how important it is to protect oneself. "Anyone who does not wear a mask is a criminal. Anyone who wears a mask cannot be infected. My driver walked around with a mask and was not infected.”
“There was a serious problem with the distribution of information, I was also a part of it. All of Tel Aviv is infected, there are masses of people with symptoms who are not getting tested," Mana said.