Qantas pilot and Sydney to Hobart yacht skipper tests positive to coronavirus for a second time - after spending a month in quarantine
Michael Crew, 53, spent a month in quarantine in Perth, where he is based for work, after first being diagnosed with COVID-19 shorty after returning from London.
While the initial diagnosis didn't come as a complete surprise, Mr Crew was stunned when tests to clear him of the virus returned another positive result four weeks later.
'I was shocked. I thought I was clear of it, but it turns out I still had it - at least the residual DNA of the virus still in my system,' Mr Crew told the Mercury.
The pilot, from Hobart, believes he first caught the virus during a trip to a grocery store in London to buy breakfast hours before he got in the cockpit of a plane to fly to Perth.
'The little, petite lady who was serving me coughed all over the goods that I'd bought, and I thought at the time 'am I going to have to throw all of this out',' Mr Crew recalled.
He developed a mild headache, fever and cough within a few days of returning to Perth before his temperature soared to 39C on March 20.
Mr Crew was full of praise for staff at Western Australia Health and Royal Perth Hospital, who closely monitored his condition while he recovered in self-isolation at home.
The pilot has since undergone more tests and will find out within 48 hours whether he still has the virus.
He admitted the virus had taken a physical toll on his body and described the ordeal as a 'personal battle'.
'There's nothing really out there that medically can help you. It's whether your body can fight it or not. It was down to the isolation phase to rest and ride it out,' Mr Crew said.
Can you get coronavirus twice? The jury is still out
Medical experts revealed last month up to 14 percent of recovered coronavirus patients in China had tested positive again.
Research showed between three and 14 percent of the former patients were diagnosed with the virus once more after being given the all-clear.
But a well known Australian scientist who won a Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for his work studying how the immune system fights viruses cast doubts over re-infection claims.
'I would be sceptical. But you can't say with absolute certainty,' Professor Peter Doherty told the ABC last month.
'I would think even if it was a reinfection, that your prior infection would give you very rapid immunity and you would recover very quickly.
'My guess would be we'd have pretty solid long-term immunity, quite frankly.'
Dr Amir Khan from the National Health Service says study and research are ongoing.
'Before understanding whether or not the coronavirus can be caught twice, it is worth knowing how we build immunity to a virus in the first place,' he wrote for Al Jazeera earlier this month.
'The jury is still out on immunity: the initial reports look good, but there is much work to be done. The virus simply hasn't been around long enough for us to conclude that getting it will confer lifelong immunity.
'The race is now on to watch and learn from those people who have recovered from the virus and to see whether the antibodies and immunity they have acquired last or not.'
The Centres for Disease Control in the US states on its website it's not yet known how long a person who had recovered from COVID-19 was protected from developing the virus again.
Mr Crew skippered his 19-metre yacht Magic Miles in last year's Sydney to Hobart race with award-winning Australian actress Kerry Armstrong on board as a crew member.
It was the yacht's fourth appearance in the iconic race since 2013, which has finished in the top 20 on performance-based handicap rankings on all four occasions.
Mr Crew has ruled out competing in this year's Sydney to Hobart if the Boxing Day race goes ahead.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/coronavirus/qantas-pilot-and-sydney-to-hobart-yacht-skipper-tests-pos...
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