I’VE HAD EVERY COVID SYMPTOM GOING... BUT STILL TEST NEGATIVE

MOLLIE WHITTAKER, a dental nurse from Southampton, has suffered ‘every Covid symptom going’ on and off since the end of August.

It began as a severe lethargy, and days later, transformed into the Covid-type illness we all recognise.

‘Within a day or so of feeling exhausted I took a rapid test because I was supposed to be going to a festival that weekend,’ says the 23-year-old.

‘I’d gone out for dinner at a local restaurant a couple of days before, so I assumed I’d caught it off someone there. But the test came back negative, so I figured everything was fine.’

By the end of the festival, Mollie, who has been fully vaccinated since January due to her job in healthcare, had acquired a ‘non-stop’ dry cough, a temperature and a loss of taste and smell.

Two days after she got home, Mollie ordered a PCR test from the Government website, which took a day and a half to arrive. She took it, sent it off, and two days later the results arrived: negative. But her symptoms gradually worsened, leaving her unable to move from her sofa and feeling as though she’d been ‘thrown out of a building’. She’s been unable to work since the end of last month.

After lateral flow tests came back negative, Mollie booked a telephone appointment with her GP, who said she couldn’t possibly have Covid if she’d tested negative. She was given a prescription for antibiotics to treat a chest infection, which have yet to work. ‘I’m sure it was Covid – I know what a bad chest infection is like and this is definitely not that,’ she says.

‘The worst thing is, I worry my boss thinks the tests must be right, so I must be pulling a fast one. But all I want is for this illness to end so I can go back to work.

‘As far as I’m concerned, I’ve had Covid. The tests must be wrong.’