My world crashed, Omotola Jalade shares COVID-19 experience
Written by MAX FM on August 24, 2020
Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde has opened up for the first time about how she contracted COVID-19 on the set of a movie.
Barely a week after she revealed on her Instagram page that she has tested positive for coronavirus, screen diva, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, has recovered from the deadly disease.
The 42-year-old actress made this known yesterday, on the popular filmmakers’ WhatsApp group, Filmic, while reacting to the debate on how Nollywood can adhere strictly to the health guidelines of COVID-19, before reopening productions.
Sharing her experience on the group, Omosexy as she’s popularly called, said she was treated by the No1 infectious decease doctors.
According to her, the doctors said many people are infected with the virus because there’s no widespread testing, and as such, whenever they feel unwell they attribute it to malaria, diarrhea among other ailments.
On how she contracted the disease, the mother of four children said she started feeling unwell after she left a movie set on Monday, August 3, 2020.
She narrates: “I hardly fall ill and so when I left the set and started having chills the next day or so, I knew something wasn’t right. I thought it might be stress. This was on Monday, August 3. I waited till Tuesday and it got worse. I was shaking uncontrollably and my temperature was going through the roof.”
“My spirit told me immediately, this is not malaria or fever. I have been extremely careful and paranoid about this COVID-19 stuff. So I told hubby I needed to be tested immediately. I have a son that has Asthma!”
“They came to test me on Wednesday and my result came out on Thursday evening … Positive. My world crashed. I felt crazy and empty.”
“My symptoms were high fever and chills… luckily no other. But it was so bad, they contemplated coming to evacuate me as my viral loaf was high and I wasn’t getting better … but God arose for me.
I went into isolation immediately. We got my result but my daughter started feeling funny.”
“So they had to come to test the whole family … I had infected my daughter and asthmatic son!
My God showed up for me as my son is asymptotic, so positive but not sick! My daughter lost her smell and taste and had severe diarrhea. All has stopped now, thank God.”
“My husband and last son tested negative respectively. We are all now in remission … taking another test soon.”
“It’s physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausting as the doctors tell you it’s a 50/50 chance. Nothing you do really saves you. You can only take the vitamins, manage the symptoms, and hope your body fights,” the admirable actress narrates.
Omotola said her biggest worry at the moment is the movie industry, adding that COVID-19 is real.
“Please this thing is real and we must come together to find the safest way to work and protect ourselves,” the actress added.
Omosexy said many people are in denial and that’s very dangerous. “I was one of the most careful persons you’d ever meet concerning COVID-19. Imagine if I believed because of that I couldn’t have been infected… I wish I wasn’t … but I was … I could have been going out and kept on infecting others,” Omotola said.
