Covid-19 Is Still Around, British Granny In ICU After Contracting The Virus On 'Dream' US Holiday

Struck by Covid-19, UK resident Patricia Bunting, 76, is currently bedridden and unresponsive in a critical care unit in Florida after contracting the virus during a trip she had planned for years.

Representational image.

Source : Canva

Covid-19 News: For all of us who survived the Covid-19 pandemic, even the memory of the horrific period can bring on a deluge of anger, anxiety, and grief. According to WHO data, a little under 8 million people died in the pandemic. The lockdowns, the masks, sanitisation protocols, the isolations, the social distancing, the vaccines, and the PPE kits had flooded our world then but thankfully are a thing of the past now.

Or are they, really?

Take this case of an elderly British woman who has been left fighting for her life in the USA after she caught Covid on a dream holiday she had spent more than two years planning and saving up for. UK daily The Metro reports that Patricia Bunting, 76, is currently bedridden and unresponsive in a critical care unit in Orlando, Florida, after contracting the virus during what was supposed to be a joyful final trip abroad with her sons and grandson.

Sadly, she is without a valid medical insurance (the pensioner could sadly not afford the £3,000 (around Rs 3.22 lakh) travel insurance quoted to her for the trip), thus leaving her uninsured in a country where medical treatment costs are sky-high.

What made her especially vulnerable to the Covid-19 infection was her existing illnesses of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and atrial fibrillation (AF), which means one of her heart muscles doesn’t pump as much as the other side of the heart. Exactly these health conditions made the medical insurance way too expensive for her. (She had reportedly been quoted between £3-6,000).

Her 40-year-old daughter Emma Bunting had tried to dissuade the mother from travelling to the US without insurance, but she proceeded anyway and is now reliant on oxygen in hospital after collapsing in a hotel bathroom, the report said.

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What Symptoms Of COVID-19 Did She Show?

"Mum complained of having very little energy but we thought she might have just overexerted herself,” Emma was quoted as saying. “She went to the bathroom and was in there for a while, after my brother checked up on her with no response he found her unconscious. On top of her COPD she’s developed influenza and Covid-19.”

Patricia was due back from her holiday on November 28 but she’s been stuck in hospital since falling ill last week. She spent five days in the ICU before being moved to a critical care ward, where she has been ever since. Sadly, Patricia has been alone in the US for a week now, as her sons and grandson had to take their scheduled return flights home due to running out of money and having nowhere else to stay.

Daughter Emma and the family are now fundraising to pay £138,500 for their mother’s flight home, so she can receive the care she needs with her family close by.