Two brothers who beat the virus shoot down the myth that it does not infect young people less. Ten-year-old Yusuf Alperen Altunbaş and his 24-year-old brother Mehmet Emre, urge their peers and younger children to be as careful as older adults when it comes to preventive measures.
Altunbaş, who lives with his family in the southern province of Gaziantep, was taken to a hospital there two months ago over a complaint of high fever and throat ache. A subsequent test found him COVID-19 positive. His symptoms were not severe, so he was taken to quarantine at home. After a brief period when he fought fever and pains, the boy recovered thanks to drug treatment.
His elder brother, Emre, who studies medicine at university, discovered he too was infected when he was admitted to the same hospital with headache and throat ache on Oct. 9. Like his brother, he recovered in a few weeks.
The younger brother says the first days were “very difficult” and pains had become “unbearable.”
“It is wrong to think that it is easier for children to recover,” Altunbaş told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday. “It can be difficult or easy. You can’t know. Your age or health does not matter,” he said. The boy called on everyone to be careful about wearing masks, not to get too close to others and frequently wash their hands. “Parents should be careful. If their children don’t wear masks, they should make sure they do,” he warned.
Altunbaş counts himself lucky as he was not “intubated.”
