Abdul

Age at interview: 34

Brief Outline:

Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Bangladeshi
Background: Abdul is 34 years old and is Bangladeshi. He lives with his wife and daughter and is an IT product manager. When Abdul got Covid, he felt wiped out physically and emotionally. He found friends, family and colleagues helpful over his two-month recovery. 

 

More about me...

Abdul first heard about Covid from friends in March 2020, around the time of the first lockdown, but didn’t have any close experiences with it until late December. He got a call from his niece telling him that his young, healthy nephew had passed away after developing Covid symptoms, and Abdul felt a “huge shock”. Abdul feels that his nephew’s death “knocked [him] out”, but he had to keep going to prepare for his nephew’s funeral. Abdul later developed Covid symptoms and thinks he might have picked the virus up when travelling for the funeral, but can’t be sure.   
 
Abdul felt that his Covid symptoms - a high temperature, hallucinations, and pain like “being stabbed between the ribcage” - were similar to a time when he had typhoid. Abdul took around two months to feel he had recovered from his symptoms, but found that his manager at work was very helpful and patient. 
 
Abdul struggled after his nephew’s death but was grateful for the resources his manager provided for dealing with grief after Covid. Abdul also suggests talking to a neighbour, therapist, or spouse to help process the emotional side of Covid, as well as phoning friends and family when recovering from symptoms of the virus.  
 
Staying connected with family and friends was a positive side of the pandemic that Abdul didn’t expect, as he felt that cousins and distant friends had been brought together by the tough times. He also felt that the pandemic has been good for work-life balance, as he no longer spends time commuting, and for giving recognition to essential workers. 
 
Although Abdul is vaccinated, he feels that because some people are not receiving the vaccine this makes it less effective. He finds it difficult to feel safe when people aren’t doing things to protect each other and is trying hard to protect himself. Abdul feels that lots of unreliable information about the vaccine travels through social media, which contributes to hesitancy to take it.

 

Abdul ignored doubts about whether it would be safe to attend his nephew’s funeral because he wanted to support his bereaved family.

We finally sorted out the transport and what we were, you know, what funeral arrangements, where he’s going to get buried and all that sort of aspects. So then when the funeral happened we, it was the Friday after I believe and again that was, you know, I was still in [place] then and then had to go up to the up to London for the funeral. And again it was just like, the feeling that I think your mind, where okay, I should, and it sounds bad for me saying it now, but it’s more like, should I really be exposing myself my wife and my daughter to this and then sort of like wait a minute he he’s my nephew we need to be showing support, you know.

Abdul was shocked when his fit, young nephew died from Covid.

He was he was like 19, quite young, he’d come to visit the house like two, three weeks beforehand as well, to see my daughter and it was just a huge, huge shock for us. not just because of the fact that he passed away, but he was just a very young person, and just he him himself he was just, he’s like 6 foot tall, he played rugby every week, he was like a body builder, and it was just a very, very, yeah, complete shock. It just made us all a bit wary.

Abdul saw multi-generational housing as an important source of Covid risk in minority ethnic communities.

I think we have a lot of different generations living within one property, whereas you probably won’t see that in the more Caucasian aspect. Where you know, in some houses you’d have sort of the grandparents, the parents, the kids, and possibly even the grandkids, all under one roof. Which probably makes it much more easier for the virus to pass especially between people. Whereas if you think from most Caucasian families, you’d probably have you know the mum and dad living in one house, the grandparents in another, kids in another with their kids. So, so it’s three different houses so you know for a fact it’s not going to pass, whereas as soon as one person gets it in that in that household it tends to spread like wildfire.

Abdul had Covid in January 2021. He felt like his ribcage was being ripped every time he coughed.

I think at my worst point, I was, not just did I feel the sort of chest ribcage area really, really sort of, being ripped every time I coughed. It felt like, the only way to describe it is knives being stabbed, between the ribcages. So, it affected me really, really bad from a physical point of view. From a mental point of view it just completely knocked me out.

Abdul rang his GP and got advice about looking after himself at home.

Well we called the doctors up, but at that point it was just very ‘okay well if you’ve got Covid symptoms don’t come in, we’re not going to see you. No chance.’ Isolate, plenty of fluids, keep yourself warm, the typical things that like, well most of them, most people would say. So as much as yeah I called and said ‘oh can I you know, can I do anything?’ It was just a case of okay, get yourself tested, if you’re positive, lock you know lock yourself up essentially. Self-isolate and yeah that’s it, so it wasn’t really going to see the doctors per say it was more advice on what to do.