Kashif

Age at interview: 35

Brief Outline:

Gender: Male 
Ethnicity: Pakistani 
Background: Kashif is 35 years old and is Pakistani. He is married, with three children. He is a company director. Kashif first heard about the Covid-19 outbreak on social media. He believes he caught the virus when he was going into his shop to sort deliveries and conduct online work. When Kashif began to show symptoms of Covid his parents encouraged him to get tested. The test confirmed that he was positive for Covid.

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Kashif first heard about the Covid-19 outbreak on social media. He took precautions from the beginning: implementing social distancing measures in his shop, only allowing one customer in at a time, and providing hand sanitizer. He also wore a mask and gloves when serving customers, washed his hands regularly, and showered as soon as he got home from work. Due to the national lockdown, Kashif had to close his shop, however, he continued to go into work to sort deliveries and conduct online work. It is during this time that he believes he caught Covid.
 
Kashif experienced a high temperature and felt seriously ill for five to six days. His parents encouraged him to get tested for Covid however he recounts feeling too ill, instead waiting until he had regained enough energy before getting a test. While ill, Kashif contacted his GP who recommended painkillers to lower his temperature. He attributes his young age and his pre-existing good health to being able to recover from the virus fairly quickly.
 
Kashif’s wife and parents also caught the virus. Before Kashif began to show symptoms, his parents had briefly visited him. Upon finding out that his parents had tested positive, Kashif’s main concern was for his mother, who is elderly and had pneumonia some years ago. Thankfully, Kashif’s wife and parents all recovered from the virus. Unfortunately, during this time, two close relatives had died, and due to lockdown measures neither he nor his family were able to attend the funerals.
 
Kashif was also financially affected by the pandemic as his income is reliant on the profits from his shop. However, he had a positive experience of receiving support from the government, saying “the council helped pay the rent. We have to pay the rent every month off the shop, the council paid for that”. By receiving financial support Kashif says he “just barely managed to pull through” having used his savings to support his family.
 
Kashif and his wife are now vaccinated against Covid. After consulting with family members who work in the NHS they made the decision to get their vaccinations. Kashif now feels protected from the virus and believes if he was to get Covid again he’d probably feel okay.

 

Relationships in Kashif’s family were tested when not everyone attended a funeral.

My dad’s sister’s son passed away. He had cancer already. He had cancer for about four or five years and then this Covid just come into it and then apparently he got the Covid. He died as well. ‘Cos everything was lockdown, we couldn't even go. So, we didn’t go that was, that caused a lot of problems between my dad and his sister [laugh].

Kashif’s symptoms started with a fever and body aches. He didn’t have the energy to move.

So, at first it was the fever, temperature and then the body started aching. So just tired, tired, tired. So waking up, waking up in the morning and sitting up just feeling tired and just wanna you know, just brush my teeth and wash my face. I just wanted to go back to bed again. So, it was that was the main thing that I just feeling really, really tired and sweaty, temperature, fever. That was my main, I didn’t have like coughs, I didn’t vomit, I did nothing, It wasn’t nothing serious like that. It was just for like a good seven, eight days I didn’t have no energy to move. Just feeling ill.

Kashif used steam, vitamins and rest to help ease his symptoms.

Yeah. So, everyone was advising take this that. The doctors themselves just said take painkillers to ease your temperature and stuff. But I think what worked for me was the steam. I used to do a lot of steam. That worked for me. That controlled my temperature, helped me a lot. But there wasn’t actually any medication. Vitamins, I used to take vitamins and then just hot drinks and steam and rest. I think the main thing was rest.

Kashif worried about vaccine safety but family members working in healthcare settings encouraged him to trust the science.

What were your concerns?
 
First of all, thinking straight away is you know, the, they made a vaccine really quickly. And then you don’t know what the actual truth behind it is. Is it gonna work? Is it something good for you? Is it not good for you? But like I said, as the family members that’re working in the hospital they said, no, it’s fine. Don’t think about anything. Don’t worry about what people are saying. It goes, obviously scientists have made this and it, we work in the hospital and we’re telling you, you need to take it.