Climate activist Greta Thunberg has claimed in a recent Instagram post that she may have contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus along with her father, actor Svante Thunberg. She said that they are both now in isolation after developing symptoms of the virus on a recent train tour of Europe, which the pair took before the lockdowns were imposed.
Thunberg said that she suffered from shivers, a sore throat, cough, and fatigue. In a video published by the New Scientist today, she said that her father had ‘more intense symptoms’ than she did, but said that he has now recovered.
In the video, Thunberg said, “For the last two weeks I have been isolated and then I got the virus. I came home from central Europe and then I isolated myself from the beginning, because I thought I might as well as I’ve been on trains…and so I don’t want to put anyone else at risk. But then I started feeling some symptoms after a few days. But the important thing is that I didn’t basically feel that ill. At the same time my father was feeling much more intense symptoms.”
Thunberg went on to say that she was isolated in an apartment away from her sister and mother. Thunberg said that she began noticing the symptoms about 10 days ago, but is now feeling better. Thunberg admitted that she was not entirely sure if it was actually the coronavirus, because of the fact that Sweden requires patients to be hospitalized before they are tested for the virus, and neither she or her father have needed to go to the hospital. Thunberg said that she truly believes that her and her father were infected with the coronavirus because the symptoms matched up, but said that there is a chance that it could have been something else, since they were not formally tested.
If Thunberg was infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus, there is a very good chance that she experienced a more mild or asymptomatic version of the illness. Research has found that teens are not usually hospitalized from the illness, but this is not entirely good news. Since the younger population only experiences mild symptoms, they don’t actually realize that they have something very serious, and they go about their normal business, passing the illness along to whoever they come into contact with. Young people are also more likely to travel, go to large events, and get involved in social situations that would give the pathogen more chances to spread as well.
“I didn’t basically feel that I was ill. It could be that I was feeling unusually tired, I was coughing a bit. That is because I’m not in a risk group, I didn’t get it very seriously. That also is very dangerous because you don’t know you have it. If I wouldn’t have been for my father getting it at the same time and much more intense than me, I might not even have noticed it that I was sick. Many people don’t feel symptoms at all, or very mild symptoms, but it can be contagious,” Thunberg explained.
In the short year that Greta has been involved in her activism, she has quickly been thrust into the heights of fame. The teenager gave a speech at the United Nations, and was involved in an unprecedented climate lawsuit involving the UN. There is also some discussion of nominating the child for the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism. However, she is also extremely controversial, and has many critics who believe that she is being used as a pawn to promote a specific political agenda.
