It was supposed to be a quick visit to the emergency room. The doctor would inject a round or two of saline drip, prescribe a few medications, and send us home – or so we thought. But my cousin, a seemingly healthy young man, who had up until that evening displayed no symptoms of being severely ill, never made it back.
Two days after being rushed to the hospital for what we had presumed was a minor ailment, my cousin, who had been living with my family since his father's death over two decades ago, passed away on the afternoon of 12 April. He was only 24.
His sudden death shocked all of us. While he had complained of a sore throat and had lost his appetite in the days preceding his death, there were no other signs to suggest he had contracted a life-threatening disease. There was no high fever, no dry cough, no breathing difficulty ﹘ symptoms of COVID-19 that one is told to watch out for.
And so, we delayed taking him to see a doctor. We thought his sore throat could easily be treated at home. We reasoned that by taking him to a hospital, we'd be needlessly exposing him to the contagious COVID-19 that had shut the country down and wreaked havoc across the globe. We believed we were doing the right thing amid a pandemic by following the World Health Organization guideline: stay at home if you feel unwell; seek medical attention if you have fever, a cough and breathing difficulty.