TORONTO -- A Toronto man who said he did everything he could to protect himself from COVID-19 is warning people to take the super-contagious variants seriously after his partner ended up in hospital when they both contracted the disease.
Kevin Morris, 33, said he and his partner Russel Day, 51, were both diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 5 after developing symptoms a few days earlier.
They were diagnosed with the B.1.1.7 strain of COVID-19, which was first discovered in the U.K.
"It was full-fledged fever and exhaustion," Morris said about his symptoms in a post to Twitter this week.
Morris said that while his symptoms gradually improved over a few days, his partner's did not. He said Day was having difficulty breathing and his blood oxygen levels were down.
"We could not get his symptoms under control and after talking to his doctor on the phone last Thursday, they recommended we take him to hospital," Morris said.
Morris said they were "heartbroken, disappointed and deeply afraid of every implication going to the hospital with COVID had."
Day was taken to Toronto General Hospital for treatment and has thankfully started to recover.
He was released from hospital earlier this week and is now resting at home, Morris said.
"I cannot express how hard and emotional this has been," Morris said, adding that he couldn't visit Day in hospital. "I wasn't even able to walk him into the emergency room when I drove him last week."
Morris posted about his diagnosis to Twitter with the hopes of warning people about taking the COVID-19 variants seriously.
“We have done every precaution and we still got it,” Morris said, adding that contact tracers haven't been able to determine where he got COVID-19 from. "We had not seen anyone. We have not hugged a friend on the street or had a quiet dinner at someone's house."
"I am not saying this to scare anyone. But as the province has relaxed restrictions, we are now in a third wave and the word is still not being spread about proper protocols and safety measures."
"Wear a mask. Everywhere. Keep up your social distancing, be strong, and tell the people in your life that you love them."
Ontario has detected 10,291 cases of mutated COVID-19 in the province since it started testing for variants of concern.
