Healthy businesswoman, 32, relives ‘unbearable’ pain of 40C fever coronavirus after posh ski trip
A BUSINESSWOMAN and fitness addict with no underlying health conditions has told of her “unbearable” 40C temperature after she contracted coronavirus on a ski holiday in Verbier.
Rosie Parkes, 32, from West London, picked up the virus during a trip to the wealthy Swiss ski town in early March.
Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates
Rosie, who runs a luxury jewellery and fashion brand, is fit and healthy and does high-intensity exercise classes every day – but was still knocked out by the bug
Ski resorts across Europe are thought to have been a hotspot for coronavirus cases.
Rosie, originally from Surrey, told the Telegraph: “We were in a chalet of 12 who all came down. I wasn’t tested but one of our party lives in Switzerland and he tested positive.
“I got home Saturday, March 7, went to work as normal on the Monday but woke up at 3am on Tuesday morning feeling achy and sore. I had pain in my lower back and hips, but if felt like something inside was hurting – my kidneys.
CORONAVIRUS CRISIS - STAY IN THE KNOW
Don't miss the latest news and figures - and essential advice for you and your family.
To receive The Sun’s Coronavirus newsletter in your inbox every tea time, sign up here.
To follow us on Facebook, simply ‘Like’ our Coronavirus page.
Get Britain’s best-selling newspaper delivered to your smartphone or tablet each day – find out more.
“It was unbearable, no position I could sit, lie or stand in helped and it made sleeping really difficult.
“I had a temperature which went up and down over four days, spiking at 40c on the Thursday and I was bed bound the whole time. I never got the chest pain but had a bit of a cough – just a normal ‘cold-type, phlegmy’ cough. I went off my food a bit as I improved because I lost my sense of taste.
“I now feel like I’m recovering from a cold. My husband had a few symptoms but has been fine. We are still self-isolating.”
SKI RESORT HOTSPOT
It comes as IT consultant Daren Bland, 50, fears he was the UK’s first unwitting super spreader of coronavirus after catching the deadly virus in a packed Austrian apres-ski bar.
Daren was in Ischgl from Jan 15 to 19 with three friends, two from Denmark and one from Minnesota in the US.
All fell ill on their return with classic symptoms and Daren passed on the infection to his wife and children in Maresfield, East Sussex.
He is now convinced he was the “Brit Zero” case who brought the bug to the UK much earlier than experts had believed – but has yet to be tested.
most read in news
The Brit was among hundreds of snowed-in skiers dancing on tables, downing shots and playing drinking games in the crowded Kitzloch Bar at the Ischgl resort in the Tyrolean Alps.
The first recorded UK case was on January 31 and the earliest transmission within Britain was on February 28.
Austrian prosecutors opened an investigation into allegations that a suspected infection in Ischgl was covered up, allowing Covid-19 to explode across Europe as trippers flew home.
Meanwhile Brighton super spreader Steve Walsh, 53, picked up the disease at a conference in Singapore in January and came home to Hove via a skiing holiday in the Alps.
He travelled to Les Contamines-Montjoie in France and stayed with Bob Saynor and Catriona Greenwood, who own the chalet where 11 people were exposed to the virus.
The businessman then flew from Geneva to Gatwick on an Easyjet plane with more than 100 passengers and crew and went to the Brigadier pub in Hove. He then went to A&E in Brighton with symptoms of flu.
