'Coronavirus isn't that bad': Cruise passenger, 66, who caught the virus on the Diamond Princess and remains in quarantine says 'it's just like a cold and bronchitis was worse'
- Carl Goldman, 66, contracted the coronavirus aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan
- He was evacuated to a bio-containment center in Nebraska
- Goldman claims that his symptoms were 'mild' and nothing compared to having bronchitis
- He had a fever, sore throat and a cough but compares it to 'recuperating from a regular cold'
- He adds that the coronavirus 'doesn't have to be a horrible calamity' and that there is 'no need' to panic
- He also advises that people buy a digital thermometer, drink warm fluids and exercise to ward off the virus and its symptoms
- Six people have died of the coronavirus who were on the Diamond Princess
- A Japanese official now claims the quarantine on the ship may have been flawed
By
Frances Mulraney For Dailymail.com
Published: 15:46 GMT, 29 February 2020 | Updated: 15:54 GMT, 29 February 2020
An American man who contracted the
coronavirus while a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that has seen six deaths from the illness has said there is 'no need' to panic as the deadly disease is similar to a common cold.
Carl Goldman, 66, left the U.S. in January for a 16-day cruise around eastern Asia with his wife Jeri Seratti-Goldman.
Almost two months on, the
California couple has still not returned home and are in quarantine at a bio-containment facility at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Goldman said that the symptoms of the virus, which has now claimed almost 3,000 lives globally, is mild and that he had a much worse time when he contracted bronchitis.
'I am in my late 60s, and the sickest I've ever been was when I had bronchitis several years ago. That laid me out on my back for a few days,' Goldman wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post.
'This has been much easier: no chills, no body aches. I breathe easily, and I don't have a stuffy nose. My chest feels tight, and I have coughing spells. If I were at home with similar symptoms, I probably would have gone to work as usual.'
Goldman and his wife left the Diamond Princess cruise ship believing that they had avoided contracting the disease.
The cruise ship was first warned of the onboard outbreak on January 17 when a passenger who had disembarked a few days earlier tested positive.
The cruise quickly turned back to Yokohama in Japan where the entire ship was kept in quarantine for two weeks.
Over 700 other passengers have been diagnosed with confirmed cases, six of whom died.
The Goldmans disembarked from the ship after quarantine in Japan showing no symptoms but Carl was suddenly struck ill on the chartered flight back to the US.
Jeri Goldman continues to test negative for the virus, despite sharing a room with her husband during the ship's quarantine.
'I had a bit of a cough, but I chalked it up to the dry air in the cabin,' he said of his flight back. Goldman said that exhausted from departing the ship, he fell asleep but woke up feeling that he had a fever.
'When I woke up about two hours later, I knew I had a high fever,' he told
ABC News.
'My wife touched me and she knew I was burning up. I went up to the military doctors, they took my temperature and immediately put me in a quarantine area.'
Goldman added that the coronavirus 'hits very, very fast' and that a person 'can go for days feeling fine' despite having the illness.
'We could have been exposing so many people to the virus not knowing we had it,' he said.
While the virus appeared to hit him from out of nowhere, he described his other symptoms as 'mild'.
When the couple landed back in California, they and 11 other infected evacuees were flown immediately to the center in Nebraska but Goldman was already showing signs of improvement by the time he reached Omaha.
'The good news is my fever broke by the time I came to the hospital. I had a little fever, mild fever the first day. And then over a night ago, I had a little fever as well, that just came for about an hour and then disappeared,' he said.
While he is still testing positive for the virus, he told
NPR that all he has is a 'little cough still'.
'My voice is a bit raspy, and I'm a little fatigued, but that may be also because of the jet lag and the travel and everything else on top of it,' he said.
'It doesn't feel any different than recuperating from a regular cold.'
Goldman also warned that there is no need to panic about the virus as it will have less of an impact than the flu.
'I think just have a thermometer... don't panic with this, and realize that this is going to be less of an impact in terms of deaths than the flu is each season,' Carl told
Fox News when asked for advice.
He adds that he seems to have been given 'gallons and gallons' of Gatorade while in quarantine which has helped to ward off any dehydration.
Goldman has been keeping an on-going journal of his experience via the website for the radio station he owns, offering some tips to beat off any symptoms.
'The advice I relay in all my interviews is to purchase a good digital thermometer for each person at home, drink warm fluids, put fresh ginger in warm water, and exercise,' he writes.
'All will push body temperatures up. It appears the coronavirus, COVID-19, like the flu bug, does better in cold environments. It doesn't like the heat.
'My wife also wisely advises to refrain from our typical California greeting of hugs and kisses. We should segue to the Japanese custom of a simple bow.'
The couple, who have been married for 29 years, are both still separated in quarantine but are able to call each other from their separate cells. They haven't seen each other face-to-face in almost two weeks despite being in the same building.
'The time has passed more quickly than I would've expected. With my laptop, I get as much work done as I can, remotely. I catch up with friends. I take walks around my room, trying to take a thousand more steps each day. I also watch the news,' Goldman writes.
